Soul of a demon
by cakemaster
Summary: What if kyuubi was not a mindless beast but intelligent and most of all patient. What if helping Naruto grow was the most logical decision at the time to ensure ones own survival.
1. Prologue

**I do not own Naruto or any of the characters within.**

**Prologue The orphanage**

Small child, only 4 years old, stood by a tree in the corner of the orphanage watching other children playing in the sandbox while the orphanage workers kept an eye on them. Why was the small kid sitting by the tree rather than with the other orphans? Because he was the village pariah, unloved and unwanted.

"_Why won't they let me play with the rest of them, I don't like being all alone."_

Naruto proceeded standing by the tree and watching others play. Feeling hungry despite having just eaten. _"I wish the old man visited me again. He is always nice and talks to me"_

Most of the orphanage workers ignore that Naruto is there whenever possible, not allowing him to play with other children. They made sure he got exactly the same portion that the other children his age ate. But for some reason he was still always left hungry feeling as if he barley ate anything, despite getting as much food as the others.

One of the biggest bully's in the orphanage, a violent 8 year old kid, approached Naruto "Hey you shorty I want to sit here so move it!" Naruto refused to move stating "It's a tree, there are more all around here, you don't have to sit here I was here first."

The bully named Takumi proceeded to push Naruto who was half his size. After falling down, Naruto proceeded to get back up to try and fight the bully despite being smaller. Yet, before he could he noticed the orphanage matron watching the situation closely while standing only a small distance away. Naruto carried on to just stomp off feeling annoyed and angry knowing that if he tried to fight back the orphanage matron would interfere leaving him yet again without dinner for supposedly "attacking without any provocation and generally being a dangerous menace."

Few months later.

Orphanage matron watched as Naruto ate his dinner thinking _"Why does the Hokage want this thing kept alive, eventually he will get his power back from within that seal, who knows what he will do then, it's irresponsible and idiotic to keep that next to children. I really need to find a way to get it at least outside the orphanage without getting into any trouble."_

Few days later when Naruto came back from his daily wandering (Orphanage matron told him to just stay outside the orphanage except during mealtimes and night. Threatening him if he was in the yard surrounding the orphanage during the day, he would be punished)

"_I don't like having to wander around, at least the adults in the orphanage don't try to kick or hit me" _were Naruto`s thought on returning to the orphanage for the night.

Next morning when Naruto woke up he found the orphanage matron walking into his room "Grab your things I've had enough of you being a menace in my orphanage". Sleepy and confused Naruto grabbed his blanket as that was the only thing he owned besides the clothes he had on. _"Am I being moved to a different room or what did I do this time?"_ Following the matron to the orphanage gates Naruto kept wondering what was going on. When they reached the gate the matron turned to him "Do you know what day it is today?" Naruto realized that it was October 10th the day of the kyuubi festival and also his birthday, the day where everyone was lot harsher than normal. Last year he made the mistake of wandering outside the orphanage and ended being beaten up by a few drunks.

"Good, you realized. This is also the day when you stop living at the orphanage. It got decided that you should not be around children so get out of there! If I see you here again I will not be so lenient to allow you to survive!"

Naruto being scared and now 5 year old kid that he was just ran away thinking of the hiding places he had been using to hide in when he had to be outside the orphanage.

That night Naruto got beat up when few drunks stumbled into the ally he was hiding in. The bruises and the broken arm healed by the time he woke up next day. Like this he started his time living completely by himself in the alleys of Konohagakure.


	2. Chapter 1 My own home! And awakening

I do not own Naruto or any of the characters within.

**Chapter 1. My own home! And awakening.**

In a cage that looked like it was in a sewer, was heard a deep growl that was followed by a raging roar.

"_I faintly remember fighting humans."_ Flow of red power flew out of the creature lying down behind the bars. _"Hmm this seal is definitely not made by a human. I can feel the cold power flowing through it." _Thought the creature exploring the prison._ "So the seal is set to allow ever increasing amounts of my power to flow out based on the age of my prison."._ While continuing to explore the seal the red flow of power suddenly stops. "_What! Good thing that I did not forcibly break this seal it would have killed my host and me with it. How did a human figure out how to create a seal complex enough to tie my soul to a human?" _After a while he figured out what he was able to do within the prison to affect things. _" So it's possible to drag my hosts mind into his own mind-scape, to the edge of the seal, also it's possible to reach out and touch his senses being able to read his surface thoughts and to see through his senses. Can't do that do much though, as right now just the miniscule amount of strain it puts on his mind might be dangerous to him and I am most definitely not going to die!" _Thought the demon after the five year forced nap.

Naruto was wandering the alleys between the buildings. Checking through trash behind the restaurants in the area trying to find if there's anything edible thrown out. Not finding anything, Naruto continues on, trying to find at least a warm spot for the evening as it was cold in the winter, and doing his best to avoid going out into the main streets with people in them as he always ended up running into someone that decided to hurt him.

At the same time in the Hokage`s office. The Third Hokage, Hiruzen Sarutobi, was again feeling angry and annoyed as it was now 3 months since Naruto had gone missing from the orphanage. Orphanage matron has firmly stated "It's not my fault that he doesn't listen instructions and constantly wanders off."

Naruto continues his wanderings looking through the trash when suddenly **"You!"** Turning around, Naruto sees really angry looking man **"What the hell do you think you're doing wandering around my house!". **Suddenly, the man freezes and looks closer then he proceeds to grab a knife from his belt. "How convenient you bringing yourself here for judgment! I lost my arm and my wife because of you. Finally I can get revenge." he then moves to slash at the now terrified child with the knife. Naruto blocks it with his arms as much as he can getting few deep cuts on his hand.

"_I can feel complete terror filling my container." _thinks kyuubi. Reaching out with his senses sees what is going on. _"I will not be killed by some idiot with a knife" _he then floods the filter in the seal that was constantly stealing a trickle of power with power far above what it was able to purify.

Naruto suddenly feels like he is on fire and manages to avoid the next two slashes from the man but gets kicked in the process. _"He is moving slower, how?"_ Suddenly a woman with a white mask that has snake markings on it jumps down from the roof looking at the scene for a second and knocking the man unconscious.

_The ANBU looks at Naruto "So that's the kyuubi kid, I need to get him into hospital soon before he bleeds to death and inform the Hokage that we found him. His eyes! They are red with slitted pupils! Better safe than sorry" _The ANBU rapidly moves behind Naruto and knocks him unconscious as well with a quick hit to the back of the head. Few hand-signs and a puff of smoke later two more of the same ANBU stand in the alley. One grabs Naruto while the other grabs the armed man and the third one heads for the Hokage tower.

Few minutes later at the office "I was patrolling on the rooftops when I felt a surge in chakra, it was instantly recognizable as kyuubi`s but the amount was not as strong. I apprehended the attacking man and carried the kid to the hospital." came the report from the lady with a white mask.

Next day we find the Hokage talking to a doctor at the hospital "How is he? Is he healing?" Doctor responds "Even better, he is already healed. I've never seen a bloodline like his." at the sideline another doctor sneers at that statement but stays silent otherwise. "You did a full checkup on him?" asks the Hokage. "Yes and he is a remarkable young man it's amazing that he is even alive with the state he was in. There are several irregularities that I think are an indication of a bloodline, a very potent one at that"

"Hmm would you mind listing me what you found?" At the Hokage`s question doctor starts talking again. "He does not so much as heal as he actually regenerates, there is not even the faintest amount of scarring left from the cuts. Added to that his whole body's metabolism is running at a shocking pace. And his chakra reserves are absolutely massive. Also his is showing signs of long term malnutrition and starvation."

"How soon is he likely to be awake?" The doctor lets the Hokage know that possibly tomorrow as his body is catching up his long missed sleep.

"_I need to plan how to make the best of this situation as I can't have the child dying before I'm able to escape from the seal and based on the state of his mind. He barley wants to stay alive at this point with everyone wanting to either hurt or simply ignore he exists."_ and so the fox demon proceeds with planning on how to make certain the child stays alive. _"..hmm pretending to be nice and caring would probably get him to trust me giving me further influence and being able to directly direct his growth.". _Power swirls through the cage as the giant demon shrinks down to a tiny human shaped figure with red hair. If you were to look at the face you would consider it a beautiful woman but the rest of the body lacks any gender indications. _"Hmm a child is probably more likely to respond well to a kind female figure." _The shape proceeds to change into a beautiful woman with some oddities like fox ears and a whole set of tails. _"Now to make contact and convince him not to tell others of talking to me. Probably a mental link would be helpful as well"_

Naruto wakes up and looks around, _"I don't remember climbing into a sewer." _and starts moving towards the direction he can see light from, eerie red glowing light but light nonetheless. He reaches a set of huge bars of a cage with the piece of paper with some weird letter like things written on it. As he gets closer he tries to see what is behind the bars but there's nothing, except a faint red glow. Reaching towards the bars he suddenly hears someone talking "Don't touch the bars they will hurt you if you do." Naruto looks around and sees no one despite hearing someone talk just a moment ago. "Who's there?" a moment later a pretty red haired woman walks out of the darkness on the other side of the bars. "If you carefully come here past the bars I can heal your hands.". Naruto thinks for a moment and walks inside the cage. The woman gently takes a hold of his hands and with a red glow around hers proceeds to heal the last remainders of the cuts. "See, all better.", Naruto just looks at his hands for a few moments and mumbles "Thanks.".

The woman then starts talking again "There is something serious I need to talk to you about.". Naruto looks at her curiously "I'm kind of special, it's hard to explain but if you tell others about me I can't help you anymore but if you don't i will be able to talk to you even if you are outside in the real world.". Naruto looks at her confused "What do you mean real world?" the girl chuckles, "We are inside of your mind at the moment, hidden deep away. I need you to promise you won't tell anyone about me or I will stop talking to you but if you promise I will always be there to talk to you", "You mean I won't be all alone anymore? Like a friend?" The girl looks at him for a few moments and then responds "Yes, like a friend. My name is Hikaru. But for now you need to wake up there are people who want to talk to you. Just remember, not even a hint to anyone else about me, it has to remain a super important secret.". Naruto nods stating "I promise but how do I wake up?" suddenly he sees a bright light blinking, he looks at the white ceiling then at the old man sitting next to his bed.

"Hey you look even older than before old man" Hokage proceeds to chuckle at that statement "You're the only one that would respond to waking in a hospital like that. But can you tell me why you ran away from the orphanage?" Naruto looks confused at that and asks "Run away? The orphanage lady threw me out telling me never to come back. And I didn't know where else to go.".Sarutobi Hiruzen proceeded to think for a few moments trying to figure out what to do with Naruto now seeing that putting him back into the orphanage was not possible", at the same time _**"Ask him to give you a place of your own to live.. I know you don't know how to cook or anything but I can help you with all of that. And you would be able to feel safe when asleep."**_

Naruto proceeds to ask for his own place after some convincing and strategic application of pleading and stating he watched people cook in orphanage and that he can figure it out.

Hokage promises to come back the next day and walks off.

On the way back to tower he tells the ANBU with him to organize a full-time watch on Naruto making sure of his safety and to get the orphanage matron to Ibiki for some questioning. Once at the tower he organizes the paperwork for an apartment for Naruto.

Next day Hokage calls an ANBU asking her to fetch Naruto for him. The ANBU with a snake icons on the mask runs off and is back soon with a really happy looking Naruto clinging to her back. "Hi old man this ANBU is soooo cool she carried me all the way here running on the roofs I've never moved so fast before." Naruto stops his fast paced chat for a moment. Hokage uses that to remind him of his manners to say thank you to the nice ANBU for carrying him. Naruto turns around "Thank you for carrying me here and helping me against that guy with the knife.", "How are you sure it was me?" Naruto looks at her for a moment with a look that clearly says "Are you stupid?" and proceeds to say "But you smell the same, different people don't smell the same.".

After a bit more chatting between the Hiruzen and Naruto the ANBU shows Naruto his new apartment which while nothing special is enough to make Naruto happy. He finally has his own place where people won't take his stuff.

Few days later Naruto wakes up from a nightmare about the knife attack. _**"shh.. just focus on being back at the cage"**_ Naruto does as said and finds him in front of the giant cage again. After walking into the cages he finds himself in a hug from Hikaru after freezing up initially he starts crying. After a while he asks her "Why do they all hate me, I have not done anything to them." Hikaru just keeps hugging the crying child while trying to sooth him, "Don't cry, you have me now so you're not alone anymore." Naruto keeps crying for a bit more but feeling a lot happier now that someone actually cares enough about him to comfort him. After a bit more he falls back asleep. Feeling safe and loved._ "Paying attention when he was watching that child get comforted by her mother was useful after all..."_


	3. Chapter 2 Academy year one

**I do not own Naruto or any of the characters within.**

**Chapter 2 Academy year one.**

Naruto, now a hyperactive 7 year old was sitting in his apartment reading a book every once in a while complaining _**"But you told me that you would help me become a ninja. Ninjas are so cool and powerful." **_as response he gets _**"I know almost nothing about being a ninja or the ninjutsu`s humans use. Which is why you are now reading that book about ninja basics and how to use your chakra for ninjutsu`s. I can help you with pure chakra usage on how to do lots of things with it. I am the best at that but remember, I am not human I have never had any need to learn about ninjas. And unlike you I'll remember every word in that book and can later remind you and help you really learn it. And if you want to be a real ninja you will be going to the ninja academy so without at least me knowing what to do, you will probably get something essential wrong and end up killing us both.". **_Naruto whines some more but goes back to actually reading.

The next morning after a shower Naruto looks into the mirror, still a bit shocked about his eyes looking "weird" _**"You have had your eyes being like mine for the last 2 weeks already so stop being shocked about them every morning". **_His eyes while still blue were now with a slitted pupil. _**"I warned you nearly half a year ago. That there would be changes from my power flowing through you. In time there will be more and more changes with your body slowly adapting to my power". **_The annoyed looking kid keeps complaining _**"But Hikaru-chan can't you make them not look weird."**_ At this point Naruto had known about his friend Hikaru being Kyuubi for nearly half a year now. At first when he figured out he had been scared but with Hikaru stating that she is the same as always he eventually calmed down. The old man had explained the peculiarities off as a bloodline to him at start but Naruto was far from stupid after all the effort from Hikaru to get him to think things through rather than blindly accepting everything told to him.

After eating a quick breakfast he headed for his first day at academy. Once at the academy after finding his classroom that was already filled with people he took one of the empty seats right next to quiet looking boy in a dark jacket that was also covering half his face. Once the teacher arrived he proceeded to glare at Naruto for a bit after entering before starting his introduction "You all are now students to learn to be proud shinobi of the leaf.". During that day Naruto got sent out twice for disturbing class. _**"Disturbing class my ass all I did was ask a question about the topic being talked about" **_a voice from his head answered _**"I did warn you that this probably won't be any different and we will need to do bulk of the learning by ourselves."**_ After the first day the rest of the week continued in a similar trend. Naruto`s classmates tended to stay away from him mostly due to their parents warning them about him and it being clear the teachers did not like him.

Half a year later

Naruto was sitting under a tree eating lunch he had brought. School had become better after he complained to the Hokage about not being given textbooks and him not being graded fairly. Hikaru did help him learn but refused to give the answers to him rather making him to work for actually understanding the topics at hand. He had also picked up a hobby of pranking the teachers that were unfair to him. Even Hiruzen had removed the teachers that graded him unfairly most of them taught him as little as possible. He did find it amusing how angry the old man had gotten when he had read through notes about the classes in academy and found the result Naruto`s tests.

Flashback:

Sarutobi read the notes reaching the one about Naruto:

Page after page of poor grades from all tests with the final notes:

Chakra pool: Very low

Memory: Poor

Reasoning skills: Poor

Observation skills: Poor

Taijutsu: Lacking any talent.

Note: Should be dropped from the program due to any lack of talent as a shinobi.

He keeps reading through the notes about Naruto about him disturbing class and generally being a nuisance.

Right after that he proceeded to call in an ANBU to tell him to fetch the academy teachers. A few of the teachers actually ended up being sent to Ibiki as forging academy test results is treason.

Flashback end.

"_Now that I at least got the class materials it's so much easier to keep track of what the teacher is talking about even if any questions from me gets ignored or gets me even punished. At least the punishments don't include getting sent out of the lessons anymore." _thought Naruto.

Naruto had at this point learned to read and write at a very good level due to the effort from his friend. He had even started regular exercising to try and be in better shape. Hikaru had made it clear that without being strong and fast all the cool jutsu`s he would know later would not help him to become an awesome shinobi as he wanted to. And Hikaru had stated "If you want to become an awesome shinobi as you have stated many many times by now you will have to work hard at it rather than just think you will suddenly find a jutsu that makes you powerful. Your main tools will be your own mind and body if you don't train both of them you will eventually get yourself killed."

And so the year progressed Naruto improving at a steady pace. Getting average grades in all the basic classes like history and math. Shining in the taijutsu lessons by winning most of the spars simply due to refusing to stay down and by outlasting all his opponents. Quite a few people were memorable in spars.

Hinata who tended to lose near all her matches by not actually attacking it did usually mean a long match for Naruto if he got matched with her. She kept avoiding Naruto attacks no matter what he did he never managed to hit her eventually she just gave up when she got too tired to keep avoiding.

Shikamaru simply tended to give up after avoiding a few hits. The teachers could not complain that he gave up without trying. Despite the fact his matches were always over in less than one minute either he won or he gave up.

Sasuke Uchiha who was far better at taijutsu than anyone else in class won almost all spars like Naruto. When fighting Naruto he only won if he managed to throw him outside the ring before getting too tired to keep fighting. He was always angry and frustrated. Most of the time he was brooding by himself, rarely actually talking with anyone while getting perfect grades in all classes.

At the end of the year Naruto did well enough in all exams to continue into the next year.


	4. Chapter 3 Year 2 Another friend

**I do not own Naruto or any of the characters within.**

**Chapter 3 Year 2 Another friend and killing intent.**

Sitting in a middle of a meadow next to Hikaru was Naruto. "'Why can't I use the mind-scape to learn ninjutsu?". His red headed friend explains "It is your mind-scape, same as you made this meadow, the forest and even the house for me any ninjutsu would work simply because you want it to regardless of the fact if you actually did it right or not. There are some things we can train in here like your bookwork. And how to deal with things like killing intent." Naruto just looks at her asking "..Emm what's killing intent?" Kyuubi just smiles at Naruto, moment later he feels terrified out of his mind as if he is standing in front of a monster, certain he is going to die and then she starts talking with a sweet sounding voice "This is intent or desire to kill projected out through chakra presence or simply force of will most of the time as combination of the two. For most people it's as if they are standing in front of a predator with them being the prey. Many simply freeze from terror. Now stop shivering in the corner over there and get back here! I'm not even using large amounts of killing intent." Naruto slowly picks himself back up and slowly makes his way back to the middle of the clearing. Sitting back down next to Hikaru he asks. "Will there be people with killing intent that horrible out there?" Hikaru just looks at him for a few seconds and starts laughing. "That was barley anything, I expect you to be able to produce killing intent more potent before you are done with your academy. Now back to topic on hand." What proceeded then was a session of just how terrified can a small kid get within his own mind without passing out.

Amongst the things decided for the second academy year was that Naruto should start holding back in class to be in middle performance wise due to all the help over the break and the constant extra training he would soon be outstripping the other students in performance. But due to the general hate and distrust against him being the best in class would most definitely work to fan the hate higher.

After a class a few weeks into the school year Naruto was sitting in an empty clearing near his apartment building trying to do the meditation exercises in order to use his chakra more freely. And much to Hikaru`s amusement he kept ending up in his mind-scape rather than in a trance helping him feel his chakra. _"I can't seem to get it right I´m supposed to feel like warmth in my middle while concentrating on my chakra. But whenever I do, I just end up in the cage" _thinks Naruto _**"Naruto let me manipulate your chakra for a bit. Just relax and focus on what your feeling, try to separate out which one is my youki and which is your chakra."**_ Naruto continues focusing feeling a great swell of power flowing through him. If anyone outside was observing they would see a visible bluish haze covering him, pushing the nearby loose grass and leaves away with a small breeze.

Few more weeks on we find our hero again in the same clearing, this time with a leaf in hand regularly complaining. "The leaf keeps flying away whenever I focus chakra on it or just burns into a crisp." Suddenly he hears the voice of his best friend again _**"It is supposed to be difficult especially with me messing with your control on purpose." **__"Eh why would you do that it's hard enough as it is!" complains Naruto. __**"It will help you gain far better control in the long term. And with you having the biggest chakra pools ever in any human you will need it." **__getting an instant response from the blond kid "I know, you have told me many times, bigger pool means harder to control. But I´m using as little as I can and it still keeps going wrong" Getting annoyed response from the demon "Stop complaining and get back practicing.__** Or we can do some more killing intent practice in your mind combined with taijutsu practice."**_ Getting an instant terrified look from Naruto who quickly gets back to practicing.

One thing Naruto did notice between all his practice and reading Hikaru had him do was that for some reason Hinata, the girl with weird eyes who seemed to be as lonely in class as he was, had started following him after class. _"Why does she keep following me?" _Thought Naruto on yet another day after the lessons were over. _**"Maybe she is lonely and just wants a friend. You should try talking to her"**_ _"But why does she just not say that then?"_ _**"Remember how lonely you were before I started talking to you." **_Naruto decided then and there that he would try to get Hinata to be his friend. At the same time in his mind a certain demon was thinking _"Hinata is probably the best at taijutsu in the class after we get past her issues, spars with her would work wonderfully at improving Naruto`s hand to hand. This would be so much easier if I actually knew any of the styles. All I know is the academy style Naruto has been taught in school. And some instinctual moves that come naturally to me. I do not intend let him get us killed. I so wish I could just flood his body with youki to make sure he does not get threatened. But even with his constantly increasing resistance to damaging effects from youki to humans an amount big enough to allow him to crush any enemies would kill him as surely as his enemies. At least with the seal relaxing slowly I can manipulate the youki in his body when needed. I should have paid more attention to the humans in the past."_

Next day during lunch break. Naruto walks up to Hinata who just goes red in face on seeing him coming straight to her. "You seem like a very nice person. Do you want to be my friend instead of trying to follow me around after class?" asks Naruto suddenly hearing something that sounds like a sigh followed by _**"What have I told you about tact!"**_ Hinata just looks at him for a moment then faints. Naruto panics _"I didn't do anything to her! Is she ill?" _After helping Hinata into a sitting position under the tree he waits till she wakes up which is luckily only a few minutes later. A really quiet response from Hinata. "Yes, I'd l-love to." Who then proceeds to make a good impression of a tomato.

Few weeks later Naruto had dragged Hinata with him to help in the planning of pranks he could not resist doing to people who treated him badly. One evening after class when Naruto was heading for the clearing he used for practice he asked Hinata "Why do you only use academy style when you attack in the spars. I can see from your moves when avoiding hits that you don't use any academy moves then." Hinata still quietly, responds. "My clan taijutsu style is the gentle fist fighting style it relies on using chakra to cause internal injuries and closing tenketsu. It would take most people a full day or two to recover from that completely." _**"Naruto ask her to close one tenketsu of yours to try, I want to see the exact effect it has and if I can re-open them"**_ Naruto then asks his new friend "Would you mind demonstrating it please." Hinata just looks scared at that. "But I don't w-want to hurt you." "I promise I won't be angry" responds Naruto. Hinata focuses chakra into her eyes making the blood-vessels near her eyes bulge and quickly closes one of the tenketsu`s in Naruto`s hand. Then is shocked a moment later when the same tenketsu flares red and is back open. Naruto shakes his hand a few times stating "That hurt. You were right." at that Hinata starts looking really sad but Naruto just continues on "That is sooo cool! I wish I could do that! We really must spar that could be so good practice!" Hinata just looks shocked at that for a moment before breaking into a smile. "A smile looks a lot better than your normal scared look!" at that Hinata just stares at him for a moment then faints. "Again! Why does she keep doing that!" complains Naruto.

After some convincing and pleading Hinata agrees to spar with Naruto few times a week. After some advice from Hikaru and Naruto explaining that she is hurting him by holding back in spars that the practice could mean the difference of life and death later in career as shinobi. And Hikaru`s advice for Hinata to try and imagine him as a moving target dummy during spars. He proceeded to get his ass handed to himself during spar after spar. With Hikaru refusing to re-open his tenketsu during the spars only after it. Naruto remembers her explanation of why _**"You will get reckless if you're constantly near invulnerable to her attacks. Also learning to deal with the pain from her attacks and how to avoid risky hits that cripple you is good for you."**_

During all the practice, spars and constant reading mixed in with pranking people Naruto made good progress learning to be relatively quiet and serious in class while pranking most teachers in the school except this year's new teacher. Iruka was the only teacher in academy that actually answered his questions. Allowing him to bypass the usual asking Hinata to ask the teacher. Hinata`s performance also went up due to the extra confidence and constant prodding from Naruto. Also being able to beat him in a spar almost all the time did wonders!

At the Hyūga household. Hinata had yet another spar with Hanabi, her younger sister. Under the watchful and harsh eyes of their father. This spar went noticeable different despite starting exactly as always with Hanabi attacking and Hinata defending. Hanabi attacked over and over with Hinata avoiding hits or blocking them with chakra loaded hits. Then to the complete shock of her, Hinata rapidly shifted from defense to offense moving in and with a quick strike managed to close tenketsu`s in her left hand. Leaving her to try and defend with only one hand while Hinata completely out of character continued to attack. After a while Hanabi collapsed with most of her major tenketsu needed for fighting with the gentle fist style closed. Watching how Hinata turned to their father bowing as tradition required. Waiting for the usual criticism. After a few moments of silence. To both of them they got surprised, instead of criticism he got a question for Hinata. "What changed to allow you to actually attack? Rather than continue to only defend like a weakling?" Hinata responded. "Advice from a friend to try and imagine an enemy being a target dummy rather than a person." Hiashi just looked at his daughter for a moment and responded. "So there is hope after all. Both of you, dismissed."

Rest of the evening while rereading today's lessons for the theory classes of academy she kept thinking. _"This is the first time that I won a spar against Hanabi and father did not scold me or call me weak even once tonight. And all that thanks to Naruto."_

Half way into this year's lessons came their first actual ninjutsu that they had to learn. Henge which required a small amount of chakra and the bunshin a clone technique creating an illusory copy of the user. Over the months following Naruto kept trying, both failing getting either to work. He even asked Hinata for help whose help with her byakugan discovered that Naruto was using huge amounts more chakra than either technique required. So Naruto kept doing more and more chakra training exercises. Despite that neither seemed to work. And he was getting closer and closer to the deadline exams of the year. And being able to perform at least one of them was minimum required to continue. Not wanting to drop out he kept practicing. On the sideline Hikaru kept trying to find ways to help as getting Naruto`s options for becoming stronger crippled would not do. After all of that she eventually figured out a way to do a variation of a henge.

"Naruto come into the seal" Naruto listening to his friend and part time teacher entered the seal finding I´m in the same familiar clearing with the now constantly improving house and forest. "Why did you call me in here you know the exam is tomorrow I need to make this work or I´ll be dropped out. "Instead of whining to me rather listen. I think you might be able to make a combination of your henge technique and the way I can shift my form. The youki in you should make that possible. Do the same hand-signs but try to use an even mix of youki and chakra. Inherent nature of my power should do half the work for you." Naruto exited the seal instantly trying to do it. After some practice he finally managed to get youki to flow with chakra into the technique.

Hinata kept watching as Naruto tried and tried never giving up. Suddenly he just stopped his practice and sat down closing his eyes. Few moments later he stood up and started practicing again while looking a lot less worried. She activated her eyes watching to see how close Naruto was to getting the mix of spiritual and physical chakra along with the amount right. And to her shock Naruto pulled not just his chakra but also the weird red chakra flowing through him. Moment later byakugan active she watched as his chakra pathways along with everything else shifted. She was starting at the copy of herself. She looked harder, yep a copy of herself. "Naruto that should not be possible henge is supposed to be an illusion yet even with byakugan I see myself when looking at you." Naruto looking sheepish scratched the back of his head the gesture looking out of place on Hinata`s body, while answering. "I thought it's so hard to use just a tiny bit what if I just use a lot more." Hinata just walked up to her copy and poked Naruto. "Hey why are you poking me!" came from Naruto. "It's not a copy even with my byakugan all I see is me.

"_**It's a full physical change that won't release unless you release it. For all intents and purposes my youki shifted your whole body into her likeness as close as it could."**_ Naruto kept practicing the jutsu for rest of the evening finally finding himself not dreading the exam.

Exam day after the written test was the jutsu part of the test Naruto demonstrated his use of henge honestly stating he just can't seem to get bunshin to work. Iruka was happy as one of the students he was most worried about had managed to figure out how to make henge work. Never realizing that Naruto was not creating a simple illusion.

Taijutsu test consisted of a spar versus the teacher. Naruto passed even getting a comment from Iruka. "You improved massively in taijutsu this year despite not managing to hit me it was very hard to get a hit on you." Naruto just thought on the fact that having to block or getting hit by Hinata hurts way too much in order not to learn to dodge. Especially with her starting to make more and more use out of being flexible in their spars dancing around his hits and getting hits regularly.

A few more people ended up dropped out and moved to a full civilian school due to being unable to manage the either the chakra for either of the jutsu`s or simply being unable to manipulate their own life-force at all.


	5. Chapter 4 Year 3 Seals and trees

**I do not own Naruto or any of the characters within.**

**Chapter 4 Year 3 Seals and trees.**

Naruto`s enthusiasm over his personalized henge technique fell noticeably after being convinced to use it to enter Konoha public library. He was made to read up on any and all subjects that affected life as a ninja. Including cook books. Now that he could actually buy stuff from shops for decent prices Hikaru had been clear. _**"You will to learn to eat healthily now that you can buy proper food ingredients. There's only so much I can do to keeping you healthy if only thing you eat is ramen. Cup ramen being far unhealthier than Ichiraku ramen stand you like." **_Naruto`s diet this far had consisted of even amounts of Ichiraku ramen and cup ramen. With Hikaru regularly complaining over his diet. Yet not having a solution that would allow him to buy healthy food from shops.

Naruto proved to be a passable cook after constant prodding and advice from Hikaru. _"How can you know so much about cooking? I thought you said that you know very little about life as human?" _asked Naruto. Response from the redhead demon was one simple statement. _**"Unlike you I don't forget anything. Every moment of my life is clear with perfect clarity." **_Naruto thinks for a moment. _"But you told me you can barely remember the attack on Konoha?"_ Shockingly angry response from Hikaru. _**"Yes and that's something I will never forget. That someone managed to manipulate ME! Leaving me in this cage inside you as result."**_ Naruto remembering what Hikaru had told him about how the seal functioned and that if he were to tear of the lock on it that it would kill him. And her not being sure if she could escape either. On the subject of the seal reminds Hikaru _"In a few years the seal will relax enough for there to be a realistic chance of me being able to break it without dying in the process. But I need to be completely certain of that. And need to make sure Naruto remembers he is not only risking his life but mine as-well when running into dangerous situations once he is a shinobi."_

All his time spent in the library prompted the creation of a new hobby for Naruto. For he had discovered materials about basics of sealing. Surprisingly enough he found them to be easy to understand. _"I don't understand why most of the shinobi never try sealing it's so useful. All I need is some paper and ink mixed with my blood with a bit of chakra."_ thought Naruto after finishing his first storage tag. _**"Reason is simple enough most find it either really difficult to understand being able to only copy commonly known seals. Or the main reason being the amount of chakra required. You find it easy seeing as you have far more chakra than normal. For instance for Hinata charging this "simple" tag would take a whole week of putting nearly all her chakra in it."**_Soon enough Naruto`s seal tags were incorporated into seal based traps. It made it so much easier to be not tracked down as person guilty.

The materials on seals were not huge in the library. Once Naruto asked the librarian about it he got told that bulk of the shinobi related materials are restricted based on rank and heavily guarded in a separate shinobi only library. So he only managed to make a few variations of some basic seals and learned a heavy lesson youki added to seals makes them more effective but also vastly less predictable. He made himself a nice selection of different storage tags and many other minor seals, none of the offensive in nature. End result being different time delayed to reacting on touch and many more prank uses.

Neither Hikaru nor Hinata allowed him to skimp on chakra control training. After various exercises consisting of making a leaf stick to him and blowing it away when wanted not randomly. Combined with having to make multiple leafs stick or unstick themselves culminating in actually flipping a leaf on his forehead without touching it. Something that took Naruto ages to master. Hinata explaining she knew many chakra control practices due to Gentle fist style relying heavily on chakra manipulations made excellent control a must. She accounted the training she had already done consisting of leaf exercise (now also mastered by Naruto) tree climbing, water walking, and other exercises consisting of training how to sense and release chakra from any of the tenketsu`s specifically rather than general areas on the body. Followed that was a demonstration for the next step of the training by the happy looking Hinata.

Naruto`s response to watching Hinata walk up the tree was simple look of awe and statement. "That is amazing. You are the best Hinata!" Hinata`s response was predictable blushing bright red much to the amusement of Hikaru and confusion of Naruto.

Following that Naruto focused and walked up the tree being shocked and happy until _**"Enough of a demonstration how much me messing with your chakra helps you. Down you go." **_With that said Naruto fell back down and failed to get more than one or two steps up at a time. Hinata was left confused at that but chalked it up the unpredictability that was Naruto.

Unknown to either of them Hiashi Hyūga was watching their interaction from the distance. _"So her improvement is thanks to interaction with the demon vessel. I should forbid her from that. Yet it has helped her progress so much."_ After having watched their whole training session for that evening, Hiashi reached his decision for now. _"I'll check on them regularly but for now the risk he poses her is worth it, if she ends up molded a stronger person as the result."_

Finally came the day they would be taught the 3rd academy ninjutsu. The kawarimi, a replacement technique. Allowing one to replace themselves with a nearby object of similar size. Surprisingly enough Naruto found that to be a very easy technique for himself successfully replacing himself with the provided log on the 3rd try. _"He learned this so easily"_ "Naruto nice work on managing this on your third try. Any reason you found this so easy" Naruto smiled happily at that answering "The others require so little chakra I find the really difficult." At that Iruka was more than a little surprised. "Normally it's the other way around with this being the hardest of the three to learn." Naruto kept practicing for rest of the lesson up till the point he thought of surprising his teacher by swapping with him rather than the log. Result of that was complete and utter look of shock on Iruka`s face. _"How, you can't replace yourself with another person!.Except when you use more chakra than the other persons whole pool due to chakra naturally resisting being replaced with someone else. But that means..." _After that thought Iruka asked Naruto. "Naruto you need to be careful that must have drained most of your chakra in one go. It is impressive that you have more chakra than me, a chuunin at this age." At that statement he got even bigger shock as Naruto rapidly replaced himself with Iruka five times in a row stating "But it's not a lot of chakra I can barley feel the drain._**"Naruto based on what I'm sensing that's only because you need to match his pools worth of chakra to replace with him. If he was really hostile against you it would not be so easy, as his chakra would fight against it far more violently. Ask him to focus on feeling hostile or on resisting and try again."**_ "Hey sensei what happens if you try resisting as there needs to be a reason why this can't be used in combat." Iruka still in a state of mild shock agreed to try that. Focusing on resisting the feeling of a swap ended up being a massively different result. With Naruto panting and looking exhausted. "That took far far more to do than before. I could actually feel the resistance and had to keep pouring a lot of power in." considering the fact that chakra was visible around Naruto for the moment of the swap made it very clear just how massive the amount needed for that was.

Later that evening Naruto kept practicing Kawarimi with his lavender haired friend. With Hinata actually managing to swap with him after some practice with the key detail being on focusing on assisting the swap on the other end. Both became good at sensing the incoming swap from each-other and able to assist on it making it require only a tad more power than normal. With Naruto doing the unusual feats of swapping with things massively different than himself. Though the chakra cost varied massively depending on the mass difference. "OK so tonight's practice results we learned we can swap with each-other not sure how to actually use that in a fight. And I can swap with pretty much anything without active chakra. Though I´m not attempting to swap with a rooted tree ever again, nor a flying rock."

Flashback:

Naruto looks around _"hmm what all else is there here to try to swap with. Already swapped with the few rocks here, the blade of grass was difficult."_ "Hinata-chan the teacher said the swapped object ends up moving as fast as we did right? And we as fast as the object was moving?" the girl being asked answered. "I think so. I don't think he mentioned what happens if we swap with something moving." At that Naruto got an idea ran over to the side of clearing and fetched a nice fist sized rock. Handing the rock to Hinata he asked her to throw it and he would try to swap with it. After a few tries that worked taking an impressive amount of chakra though. "OK swapping with moving things hurts. I felt as if I got smacked by something big on swap." Attempt at making a flying rock by running and swapping succeeded though taking more chakra but not too much. "hmm.. Maybe it's the size" stated Naruto when he started running again. Hinata watched form the side already exhausted from using kawarimi so much. All of a sudden Naruto was covered with a bright blue glow followed by lots of smoke and noise. Seeing that Hinata panics and quickly jumps up starting to search for Naruto activating her byakugan he finds him quickly unconscious in a hole nearby that used to hold a tree. After a few minutes where she dragged him to sit by a nearby tree happy that she could still see his chakra and him breathing worried about what exactly happened. Once more, looking at the devastation of the clearing. _"We will need to find a new clearing to practice in, the ground is torn up from that flying tree. Flying tree! OK I now know what Naruto tried. He is never doing that again!"_

Once Naruto wakes up he finds himself being stared at by an annoyed looking Hinata. "Why did you think that it was a good idea to swap yourself with a rooted tree?" Sounding really annoyed she continues. "Think before doing things like that I was so worried! You could have killed yourself trying that." _**"Something I completely agree I did not even have time to figure out what you were about to do before you did. You used almost all of your own chakra on that."**_ Even though privately Hinata was thinking doing something like that was so very impressive. She would not admit that as Naruto might decide to do something equally foolish in the future. Gulping scared Naruto finally responds. "I promise I'll try to think things through before doing stuff like that." after a bit more resting and thinking they finished for the night both heading to their own homes.

Flashback end.

Hinata`s home life continued to improve mainly due to her ever increasing confidence. She won almost all the spars against her sister. Even though it still pained her to hurt her. She had understood that she would be hurting her more by not doing her best. She also got introduced to the nice people at Ichiraku ramen stand. She did find it amusing to watch Naruto devour ramen like there was no tomorrow. The quantity he consumed was unbelievable. Thirty bowls of ramen... She did wonder how all of that even fit in him. She enjoyed her weekly session with Kurenai. Who used to escort her to and from academy during her first year. Even if all they did was some light practice and just having someone to talk to. Kurenai seemed worried when she was initially told about just who Hinata`s best friend was. But after covertly observing both practicing and talking together decided there's no harm in them being friends.

Going to sleep Hinata spent some time thinking about how her day had been compared to before becoming friends with Naruto. She woke up, spent time at school having to try hard not to laugh at one of the harsher teachers ending up with pink hair after the paint can appeared above him the moment he sat down. It got even harder after Naruto whispered. "Storage seal with remote trigger activated by touch. Success!" Followed by a spar with Naruto.

Flashback:

Naruto and Hinata, standing a few meters apart, both of them looking ready to move at any moment. Naruto moves attempting a quick blow towards the stomach but ends up having to quickly stop and backpedal after almost having his chakra in his hand sealed due to Hinata`s quick reaction. Following that was a fight lasting for a while with Naruto approaching to attack yet having to quickly retreat due to Hinata`s fast reflexes. Finally seeing an opening Naruto charges in, quickly changing direction and charging from the side. Hinata spins on the spot and manages with her hand flying over Naruto`s sealing the major tenketsu`s in his hand giving her a major advantage. Which she quickly uses by attacking and after a quick flurry of blows with Naruto frantically trying to dodge manages to seal enough of his chakra to win yet another spar.

Flashback end.

After her spar she got to spend an hour going through the kata`s for her fighting style while being amused by the sight of Naruto regularly falling down the tree. Occasionally mixed in with curses from Naruto. After getting home she had a spar with Hanabi which she managed to win. Ending up being praised for a good match by her father. Something that left her shocked for rest of the evening. And to think all of this only due to her friendship with Naruto.


	6. Chapter 5 Shadow clones and year 4

**I do not own Naruto or any of the characters within.**

**Chapter 5 Shadow clones and year 4 of academy.**

The pairs fourth year started similarly to the previous ones. Neither really interacting with their classmates outside class. And spending lots of time practicing and training by themselves. On yet another day traveling through town shopping in a henge. Naruto suddenly smells something familiar while walking past a dango shop. _"Hmm I recognize this smell. Isn't that the ANBU who was guarding me regularly when I was smaller?"_ _**"She was one of the few ANBU that did not hate you. You could try asking her for advice on how to manage the clone portion of the exam you know is coming this year. You cant graduate without it." **_Prompted by the Bijū, Naruto walked into the dango shop after dispelling his henge looking around and following his nose. Seeing the smell coming from a purple haired woman. Looking at her Naruto was shocked to say the least. She was wearing a tan cloak but underneath it was only a fishnet shirt and a miniskirt. If she were to open her coat more there would not exactly be a lot to hide. Being a teenage kid Naruto ended up with a massive by the reaction Hikaru reminded him_** "Stop drooling over her and go say hi, see if you can convince her to help you with the clone technique." **_Naruto pulling himself together walked up to her. "Hi, Your the nice ANBU who helped me in the past." Suddenly finding her staring at him with a kunai at his throat Naruto started sweating. "What makes you think iv ever met you before kid? And even if I had been in ANBU the identities of all ANBU officers are hidden."

"You still smell the same." The woman keeps staring at him. "Any reason you decided to walk up to a top member of Konoha Torture and interrogation department. And start pestering me about ANBU duties."

Naruto now feeling even more scared, even he had heard stories of that department so he quickly answers. "You were nice before and my teachers won´t help me so I was wondering if you could help me out with bunshin. As I cant get it to work." Hearing that the woman thinks of just how harsh the kids childhood has been. Even she during her time in ANBU had to stop several assassination attempts on him. Deciding there cant be any harm in seeing what the kid can do. "Hmm. Torturing you might be fun. If you really want me to teach you at anything meet me at training ground 13 tonight at eight." And she removes the kunai from his neck and just walks off suddenly turning around "The names Anko not ANBU lady remember that."

Naruto spent rest of the day debating with himself if meeting the crazy lady would be a good idea. Finally deciding its worth a try as otherwise i will be looking at failing the graduation exam later this year. And based on Hikaru-chan the chance of me never managing that jutsu is very high. With the decision made Naruto lets Hinata know he won´t be able to make it to their practice session tonight. And heads off to meet Anko.

Reaching the training ground Naruto looks around seeing no one. Guess it was too much to hope she would actually come here. Suddenly hearing the sound of something moving through the air at high speed he dodges to the side. Finding a kunai in the tree he was standing next to. Looking around he sees Anko walk out between the trees. "Good reflexes so lets see what you can really do." Anko suddenly attacks. Naruto manages to dodge under her punch quickly running off to the side. **"What the hell are you doing you crazy bitch"** Only response from Anko is to smirk and to throw another kunai. That Naruto barley manages to dodge. Only getting a moment to look from the kunai to Anko he sees her already with two more kunai at hand. What follows is a quick flurry of Naruto trying to flee with kunai flying after him. Running at full speed Naruto jumps over a kunai he heard flying at him from behind. Using chakra to grab hold of a branch he quickly jumps from one branch to another moving to try and get away as fast as he can. Using kawarimi mid leap to swap with a nearby branch off a tree. He keeps running thinking he finally managed to shake her off. Suddenly snakes fly out from the branch straight ahead of himself. Finding himself now tied up by snakes. He is quickly caught by Anko before he falls to the ground. "Not bad you have some hope" states Anko while carrying him back to the edge of the clearing. "I'm surprised at you already knowing tree climbing exercise at your age." Getting less worried and more annoyed as Naruto was starting to see that she was not going to hurt him.

"What the hell was the reason for attacking me?"

"If I was going to train you in anything I had to see what you were capable of."

"Wait so your actually going to teach me stuff?" Responds Naruto feeling eager and happy until he remembers he is tied up in snakes. Feeling creeped out he quickly asks "Could you please get the snakes off me."

She just looks at him for a few moments before stating "Eh might as well, in the future I expect you to free yourself though." after freeing from him from snakes Anko asks him to tell him so what is your actual problem with bunshin techniques. After explaining that he could not get the chakra small enough to not overload the jutsu. Anko asks him to demonstrate.

Anko watches as he does the hand-seals for the clone jutsu. Focusing on feeling on the amount of chacra being used. _"His chacra signature is massive, he is doing a surprisingly good job of instinctively suppressing it. And he is using enough chakra in the jutsu to create any of the elemental clones. Hmm I guess basic bunshin being the lowest chakra usage technique known makes it perfect for academy students and horrible for him with his huge pool. He would need a mednin level control to use it at all. Hmm cant teach him any of the elemental clones as basic chacra reconstruction to element is needed for any of them. But shadow clone might work."_

"OK kid I know how to get around that problem but I need to ask permission from the Hokage to teach a kinjutsu technique to you. So are you serious about wanting proper training from me?" Naruto quickly agrees being happy to find anyone willing to teach him.

After she leaves he does ask Hikaru _"Why did you not help me I thought she was going to kill me." _

"**It was clear from start to me that she was only testing you. I see we need to work on your observation skills more. The kunai were obviously blunted. And none of her attacks or hits were aimed at vulnerable spots. Also she moved at a speed you could keep up with despite at occasions showing she could move far faster."**

Next day at the hokage office.

"So let me get this right you not only want to train Narutoin a kinjutsu technique but want to try and end up as his jounin sensei?"

Sweating a bit due to the serious look on the Hokage`s face she quickly answers "Yes I think the shadow clone would work for him as he won´t ever get normal bunshin to work. He simply has way too much chacra for that. Making shadow clones that are dangerous due to their enormous chacra cost perfect for him."

After thinking for a bit more the Hokage responds. "Due to your past the council will not allow you to be places as jounin sensei, But as long as you don't teach Naruto anything from Orochimaru`s forbidden techniques I don't see any issues with you teaching him a bit. It is nice to see people willing to give him a chance despite his problem and despite my best attempts most still only see his burden rather than the nice kid he is."

Feeling happier than she had in a while Anko heads out of the office. So I still won´t get to try as jounin sensei but teaching him might be fun. Anko proceeded to laugh a bit due to her own thoughts of all that he would do to Naruto. Naruto who was in the academy class listening to a boring lecture about history felt a shiver down his back. _"I feel as if something really bad just happened."_

That evening Anko talks to her best friend Kurenai about getting a kid to teach a few times a week and all the things she intends to teach him. Knowing her friend but not wanting to ruin her mood Kurenai thinks _"Poor kid by the time Anko is done with him he will probably be afraid to leave home ever again. At least Hinata is not the poor victim she is torturing."_ Unknown to her Naruto was planning to see if Anko would teach Hinata as well despite not knowing what training with Anko would be like.

Few days later arrives the day Anko had agreed to meet him in the same training ground again. He makes his way there being wary and wondering is she going to attack me again? And he is not disappointed in his worry. Only a few minutes past the agreed upon time he smells Anko being nearby. "I can smell your there so stop hiding." Anko just smiles widely at heading that from her position in a nearby tree and jumps down.

"OK lets start with a nice light spar as warmup." What follows is Naruto being brutally beaten up despite his best attempts. Twenty minutes later Naruto is again tied up in snakes bruised all over. Anko sits down on a nearby rock and takes out a box with a meal from somewhere nearby. Eating and watching Naruto she reminds him "I did say I am not freeing you anymore so figure out how to free yourself if you want me teach you a bunshin jutsu that you should be able to manage.

Next hour consists of Anko eating her meal followed by reading a book along with some exercises, All the while Naruto struggles to free himself. _"The escape techniques taught at academy aren't enough to get myself free"_ Eventually he manages to free himself.

"Good I was starting to get bored here" is Anko`s response to his freedom.

She shows him the hand-signs to him along with instructions on how to mold his chacra internally to do the jutsu. After a while of explaining she tells him to give it a try but to remember to stop if it feels like it might be too much chacra drained. And to her utter shock Naruto succeeds on the first try. More than succeeds even.

Naruto goes through everything he got told getting ready for trying the technique. He focuses as much chacra as he thinks he safely can. And executes the jutsu. Suddenly the whole clearing is covered by smoke. The sight that greets him is a field of himself.

At the same time Anko`s thoughts _"That has to be at-least three hundred clones. Even I can manage about twenty at once for a short while maybe five if I want them active for a hour. The constant drain on top of the initial cost of chacra is huge. If he dispels all of them at once the strain on his mind might kill him" _"Naruto dispel them one by one" The clones start dispelling one by one with Naruto standing there with a look of complete shock on his face as memories of his clones start arriving one by one. After all of them have dispelled Naruto ends up being absolutely exhausted despite his chacra pool still being over half. _"Why do I feel so tired I didn't use that much chacra." __**"The strain of all those memories so rapidly was too much to your mind at the moment. You will need to be really careful with this."**_ Said kyuubi.

After another session of beat up Naruto they finished for the night.

One evening Naruto ended up having to do his practice session without Hinata due to her having some clan related things to do.

"_**Before you start trying out the shadow clone technique more I have a few things to note to you based on what I sensed on how it manipulates chakra. First of all the clone is solid as you already saw but one hit to a vulnerable spot would disperse it. Any hit strong enough to hurt you would simply disperse. But on the more interesting uses for it. You can use it to massively increase how much you gain on training due to gaining the memories of the clone. One example being have a few clones watch when you spar with someone. The extra point of view's will massively help you in learning what your doing wrong or right in a fight."**_

"_So I could have a army of clones fight each other and learn from that?"_

"_**No you could not. Until your tolerance to the strain of extra memories decreases only use a few. I think at the moment you could probably handle five clones for a full day as long as you disperse them at the end of the day."**_

"_Why full day should it not be only during a spar."_

"_**Nope your making at-least three each morning and sending them to library to keep reading on any and all useful subjects."**_

After some practice Naruto commented on something he noticed. _"The clones don't have any youki in them. I feel your youki constantly yet their memories I can feel it being absent. Why?"_

"_**Good you payed attention to the memories. Unless you specifically use my chacra to create them they won´t have any youki in them. The technique is not capable of replicating my presence there. As it is using a shard of your soul as focus and link for your chacra."**_

"_My soul? Anko did not say anything about the soul being affected."_

"_**That's probably due to her nor any other human using this jutsu not knowing it. If it were used constantly to make hundreds of clones it would end up damaging your soul slowly driving you insane. But just like your body your soul will slowly build up a tolerance to using it. At the moment I think at most you could handle 30 or so clones constantly. But your mind cant handle that yet even if your soul can. So you need to continue carefully using it."**_

After a lot more grumbling and complaining from Naruto he agreed to constantly have three clones reading up on everything in the public library. Also one clone just practicing the kawarimi jutsu. Kyuubi had made it clear she expected him to get good enough at it to swap instantly without needing hand-seals.

Naruto`s new schedule took a while to get used to. All academy days were filled with academy followed by practice with Hinata. With clones constantly reading and researching anything interesting. Weekends were filled with occasional sessions of getting beaten up by Anko with good advice on everything he did wrong and how to improve. She did comment that having a few clones observing was a good idea, but told him to have them try to observe while hiding themselves. The clones did end up as regular targets to be attacked at whenever she thought they were not hiding good enough. That ended up being useful in helping Naruto learn how to deal with unexpected bursts of clone memories mid fight.

The weekends where Anko was off at a mission were filled with practice under directions from Hikaru. Once she judged his control good enough she got him started on how to use chacra better when using it to boost his strength and speed.

Halfway though the year on a weekend without Anko to help him train Naruto was sitting in his usual clearing meditating. While inside the seal he was greeted by Hikaru.

He looked around the now beautiful house. Over the years his work changing things bit by bit had ended up with a large forest with a river running through it. A house with a clearing and a separate training ground nearby. Even a small park behind the house. Occasional smaller animals in the forest. He had managed something few ever do he had a fully fleshed out mind-scape as a home for Hikaru.

After taking a seat on a chair in the living room.

"Hikaru-chan you told me that having you inside me means I won´t ever really fall ill. But for the last week my hands have been constantly itching. Whats wrong with them."

"That's because their changing to allow you to fight better. You will have claws when you need them." Was the response from the red haired beauty sitting on comfortable chair.

"Changing?" was the annoyed sounding response. "But I thought there would be nothing more after the eyes."

"Hmm... I guess I should list all the changes you have had and are likely to be having. The claws are probably the last change for years. Through my power this far you have been changed at a massive level only very few of the changes are actually visible."

And she carry on to list all the changes done to him and what they would mean. Naruto`s bones were far stronger than normal human, His whole body regenerated at a immense pace making most cuts and bruises heal in matter of minutes. All the senses were enhanced to a high level with eyesight being the most affected of the senses with the whole structure of the eye being visibly different. Having a slitted eye was hard to miss if someone looked him in the eye. His muscle structure was noticeably different allowing for constant increase in strength and speed without growing really bulky just becoming denser and denser with no real upper limit on strength and speed reached. The claws would be only there if he specifically channeled a tiny amount of youki there. Outside that his hands would look normal.

After the chat about the changes Naruto grumbled about if he ever ended up with fox tails or ears he would not be happy. And having his friend say that it was unlikely for now if ever.

He did have a few questions on the subject of jutsu`s to her.

"You told me I would be able to enhance or change many of the techniques by adding youki to it?"

"Yes that is the case, It won´t work on all techniques but for most of them it might change the jutsu completely like the henge or simply boost the power it has by a lot. Or simply make the jutsu not work." Was the reply from the redhead.

"what would happen if I use it with shadow-clone jutsu? Asked Naruto remembering that even without youki the clones were able to somehow use his improved henge. Explained away by Hikaru as the clones being chacra construct. So only thing needed was having experienced the improved henge to be able to transform for real.

"It is worth a try just try a few but be careful."

After exiting the seal Naruto focused on adding some youki to the shadow-clone jutsu. After performing it he looked at the four clones that he had created. He immediately noticed they had claws like when he channels youki to his hands. He asked the clones. "So do you feel any different anything you think changed." All of the clones looked thoughtful. One of them after a moment started talking. "I think I can do something very useful." After that he ran of into edge of the clearing where he stopped and after a moment of looking focused exploded. Naruto received the memory remembering thinking about what felt different and noticing the volatile feeling and suddenly simply knowing that if he focused on a certain way he could explode.

"_**Remember like I said youki is far more instinctive than chakra. And the clones whole mind is made of chacra."**_

The last three clones looked thoughtful for a while and started trying out different things until one of them on trying tree climbing stumbled and fell down hitting a branch on the way down. After getting up off the ground the clone commented I think I just used up a huge chunk of chacra like when we tried swapping with really weird things. At the end of the night after all the trial and error Naruto was more than happy with the new clones. It took considerable amount of damage to disperse the new clones. Any wounds or non instantly lethal wounds were fixed in a moment at a large chakra cost. And they could explode. There was nothing cooler in his opinion at that moment than exploding clones. He did discover getting memories from the improved clone did have drawbacks normal clones dispersed on damage. But with these he actually remembered the big wounds they took and the pain involved. The thought processes of these clones were perfectly clear and fast unlike normal shadow-clones who were always a bit slower than he was with thoughts that felt like they were in a slight haze.

During the weeks following his improved shadow clone discovery he did try to have at-least two of them around constantly on top of the three library clones trying out jutsu`s and combat. The clones ended up having regular death matches with each other. The clones were more aggressive than he was normally. But the practice they did was invaluable especially with them able to freely sense his state of chacra and able to pull on it to make more clones freely. The clones managed to improve on his henge. Unlike him the clones could take on shapes that were definitely not human. Culminating in a extra clone flying around in the form of a bird on most days. Naruto found the memories of flying freely and observing the village in the form of a hawk to be very relaxing and enjoyable.

He did decide that after all the time he had spent with Hinata especially with her being his best friend that he should tell her about Hikaru. Seeing as it was his birthday tomorrow being 10th of October his birthday. Hinata had promised to visit him at his home as he refused to be out in town during the kyuubi festival due to a combination of bad experiences in the past and knowing people would be angry at him being there.

10th of October after spending half the day reading he heard knocking on his door. Quickly checking who was behind it he let Hinata in. Looking more nervous that in a long time he called her in. To his great joy Hinata had brought a package of ramen still warm from Ichiraku ramen for him. She told him the ramen along with a set of coupons for free ramen were a gift from Ayame and Teuchi. Both of who had become fond of Naruto over the years. Hinata also gave him a gift in the form of a grid with different sized bells attached. She explained that it could be used for chacra control practice demonstrating by playing a little tune while only holding the handle channeling chacra through it.

After chatting about everything that happened during the year Naruto got a reminder. _**"Remember you asked me to remind you when you decided to tell her about me. I still don't think it is so good **__**a idea but it is your decision."**_

Pulling himself together Naruto started talking.

"Hinata I have something major I want to talk to you about." Hearing that Hinata Focused off the card game they had been playing onto him.

"Remember when they taught in class how kyuubi attacked the village twelve years ago and how the fourth Hokage defeated her. That was not entirely true. She was not destroyed. I'm not sure if she could be destroyed even."

Hinata noticing the fact he called kyuubi a her and seeing how worried and anxious he looked decided to take some pity on him and started talking when he stopped for a moment.

"You mean to tell me that kyuubi is sealed inside you."

At that statement Naruto just froze moment later asking "How did you know? When did you find out? I thought no one our age knew."

"I have known since about half way through the first year in the academy. The second chakra flowing through you is very much visible to me. And it was not that hard to put together with the comments from everyone around you and all the hate pointed at you. I found it amazing that despite near everyone being against you. You kept trying."

Naruto just looked at her for a moment before rapidly standing up and grabbing Hinata in a hug.

Hinata went bright red and predictably fainted. After placing her on the couch in his tiny two room apartment. He ate the last of the cake Hinata had brought while waiting for her to wake up.

After Hinata woke up he told her about kyuubi not being evil like most belied. That she was manipulated by someone to attack. And that she could not even remember most of the attack. Hinata took Naruto`s word on Hikaru and actually asked some questions about Hikaru from him trying to find out more about someone that had been Naruto`s friend all this time.


	7. Chapter 6 Graduation, Clones and team

"_Thoughts"_

"**Voice loaded with power or very loud shouting"**

"_**Mind speak"**_

"Normal talk"

I do not own Naruto or any of the characters therein.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 6<strong>

**Graduation, Clones and team.**

Iruka looks over the class, feeling proud of the progress that all of them had done over the last few years. _"And to think just two years ago they all looked hopeless"._

Sitting in the class were a lot of people, Iruka slowly looked at each of them.

Sasuke Uchiha, dark haired boy with a constant frown on his face, had come a long way during his time in the academy. Initially arrogant to no end, his arrogance got slowly down due to all the times he lost to Naruto in spars. And finally broken by Hinata, always winning against him for the last two years no matter what he did in a duel. He had to accept that she was better than him in a spar despite not being an Uchiha. Also the rookie of the year having perfect scores in all subjects. Iruka was worried about him since the massacre 6 years ago where the prodigy of the clan, Uchiha Itachi, had killed his whole clan. He was utterly focused on wanting revenge.

Next he looked at the person sitting next to Sasuke.

Ino Yamanaka, one of the fan-girls Sasuke had gathered in his time in the academy. Being a tragic last survivor and member of a well-known major clan probably helped a lot with that. Blond girl with green eyes, wearing a purple outfit. She seemed to focus a lot on her appearance but had improved considerably after she noticed that Sasuke paid attention to Hinata, actually acknowledging her after she won making Ino determined to be strong even if only to have a chance with her idol.

Next to her was her friend and regular rival Sakura Haruno, who was glaring at her friend for being the one sitting next to Sasuke. She as well had improved considerably, actually taking her career seriously due to being convinced by Ino. With pink hair and green eyes she looked unusual but a pretty looking girl nonetheless. Wearing a set of clothes heavily dominated by the color red.

Bit further on was one of the troublemakers of the class, Kiba Inuzuka. Kiba, who regularly tended to cause trouble by skipping class, ended up being the lowest graded student in class. Nonetheless he performed well in all practical aspects. His appearance was scraggy looking brown hair with black eyes that had split pupils. As traditional for his clan, he had red triangular tattoos on his cheeks under his eyes. As always, he had his dog Akamaru with him.

Further on was Shikamaru Nara, sitting next to his friend Chōji Akimichi. Shikamaru was as always taking a nap mid class. Iruka throws the eraser at him, hitting him the head and getting a mumbled response of "troublesome". Shikamaru was in his gray jacket with a green tinged mesh underneath and gray pants. His black hair tied up in a spiky ponytail. Chōji, as always was eating from his bag of crisps. _"Where does he get all the crisps, he is always eating them..."_ Chōji has spiky, brown hair, swirl marks on his cheeks and like the rest of his clan he was relatively muscled and fat. Something, that no one would be stupid enough to call him.

Shino was sitting a bit further on with dark bushy brown hair, pale skin and a jacket covering half his face, reaching down to his knees. His closed off appearance was not helped by the sunglasses either.

At the back of the room was the class resident troublemaker, Naruto Uzumaki, as always sitting next to his best friend Hinata Hyūga. Naruto had over the years gone from a full orange outfit to a nearly black one with some orange highlights. Spiky blond hair and slitted blue eyes. Most of the class believed it to be due to a new bloodline. Added to that, his canines being longer than normal, he had a rather feral look. Probably planning more trouble. Nothing ever indicated Hinata being involved in the pranks but Iruka had his doubts. Hinata on the other hand was quiet, looking all the part of an heiress of a major clan. With long dark blue hair and lavender colored eyes. Wearing a gray colored jacket, dark pants which had orange highlights on them._ "I can probably attribute the presence of any orange in her clothes to Naruto`s obsession with the color."_

Making final preparations he handed out the materials for the theory part of the exam.

While one of the other teachers did the Taijutsu part outside, he graded the tests.

Sighing at Shikamaru`s test. _"It's the final exam and again he filled in exactly half the questions getting them perfect and leaving the rest empty."_

Overall results wise, Sasuke Uchiha and Sakura Haruno ended up at the top of the theory exam, with Kiba at the bottom.

At the same time outside, taijutsu practice was predictable for a lot of teachers. This year's heavy competition between some of the members of the class had ended up with some really strong taijutsu fighters. Most did averagely in the fights, exceptions being Chōji, who used his expansion jutsu and literally slapped the teacher out of the ring in a single blow, Sasuke who managed to defeat the chuunin doing the test after a short fight, Naruto who stomped through the teacher without even getting hit. And finally Hinata, who won the fight mere five seconds after start, having completely disabled the teacher.

Finally, in the evening came the ninjutsu part. Most passed easily doing all three required academy jutsu`s. When Naruto`s turn came, he walked into the class determined to get the teacher shocked by showing just how good he is with the few ninjutsu he knows.

"OK Naruto let's start with the henge." few hand-seals later he is looking at a perfect likeness of himself, after a quick inspection finding no flaws Naruto passes this one.

"Good, that was flawless now on to kawarimi" Already suspecting based on how well Naruto did with it in practice he is still surprised when without any seals he finds himself replaced by Naruto, who then rapidly swaps with several nearby pieces of furniture.

"That was very good, without hand-seals even."

"And now the bunshin." asked Iruka being worried that one of his favorite students might fail as all three were required and he had never seen Naruto succeed on bunshin. Naruto does the hand-seals, ones completely different from the ones required for bunshin. To the surprise of Iruka, he now finds himself facing 5 Naruto`s. He continues to inspect the clones for any flaws till the moment one of the clones jumps to sit on a nearby table. Watching the table move under the clone he can't resist but poke at the clone. "These are solid clones! How?"

"Remember sensei how I could not do the bunshin, I found out I have way too much chakra for that, so I learned shadow-clone instead."

"That is very impressive." remarks Iruka, at that marking down perfect score for ninjutsu part.

After that is done, Iruka goes back to the class where everyone has gathered.

"OK, everyone, feel free to relax for the next week. Team assignments will be handed out on next Monday." Everyone in the room moved to head out, all of them having their brand new Hitai-ate either in their hands or already worn somewhere on their person.

That evening Hinata and Naruto headed to Ichiraku ramen stand to celebrate and to tell them the good news.

"Hey Teuchi, guess what. We graduated, we are real ninjas now."

"I guess that means some free celebration ramen for both of you." was the answer from Teuchi while Ayame simply hugged both of them telling that she knew they could do it.

"So, do you know who you will be teamed with yet?" asked Ayame.

"Nope, not yet but we are hoping we end up in a team together." was Naruto`s response. They spent rest of the evening in the stand chatting and trying to guess what their career as ninja would be like from that day onwards.

Later that evening Naruto spent some time in the seal simply talking about all they had succeeded in this far and their hopes and plans for the future. Until Naruto came up with an idea. _"Shadow clones are my chakra mixed with a tiny bit of my soul. But what if I used something other than my soul?"_

The next day he planned to spend practicing seeing as Hinata was busy for the whole week and he would not see her before the team meeting.

"_Hikaru I want to try something with clones, do you think you could help me focus the youki to use. I want to try creating a clone with only youki." _Hikaru was surprised for a moment, she had never thought of doing a human jutsu with only youki rather than simply using youki to boost a jutsu._**"I'm not sure if that would work, youki is inherently unstable. I fear you might end up with simply an explosion."**_ Nonetheless despite feeling that it would simply end up with Naruto having burns from the youki, she focused on helping the youki flow as when handling pure youki she had to do bulk of the manipulation that goes with the hand-signs herself.

Naruto focused on his part, doing the hand-seals, feeling the burning sensation of pure youki flowing through his hands. Once finished, clearing was covered in a large burst of chakra smoke showing that a lot of it got wasted, nonetheless a moment later he finds himself looking at a clone of Hikaru, standing in front of him.

"I never thought something like this was possible. It does feel disorientating to be in both places at once. I'm still in the seal but here as well". Focusing on the youki in the clone, she discovers she is still connected to the seal and to Naruto. Trying out the limits of the new clone, she starts testing through all the things she knew Naruto`s clones could do. After a bit of trial and error and being re-summoned several times,

"I'm not really free in this form and as we tried I can't have more than one clone with this form dispersing, when I try the shadow-clone jutsu. And first clone dispersing on you summoning a second one. But unlike the clones you make, this is not independent, it's still connected to the real me. With me having to split my attention between both of them, I don't think most of your jutsu`s would work for me. I can imitate many of them simply by manipulating my youki." She says, proceeding to walk up a tree while her form shifts between several different peoples.

After a while, Naruto is excited about being able to allow at least some measure of freedom to Hikaru, even if she is still in the seal. Wishing that he could truly free her. Hikaru at the same time is feeling truly happy, for the first time in a long time. Partial freedom, even if chained was not something she expected or had planned for. But this opens up so many possibilities.

"I don't think you can summon me regularly right now, it is a shinobi village after all. And if any of them came close, my chakra signature is very definitely not human, and running into a competent sensor would be bad. And pulling on your chakra ends up with the clone dispersing or is reverted back to a clone of you. "

Naruto goes through all the exercises he knows while Hikaru sits by a tree nearby, watching him with a focused look. _"I never thought he would try to work towards freeing me, despite the fact that having me inside constantly provides him with power. But I don't think this body would be all that useful in a fight as it takes way too much focus and effort to summon in a fight. And even with me reinforcing it every blow taken would be draining the tiny bit of youki in it. The seal still stops any decent amount of youki from being in my control outside the seal."_

Rest of the week passed like a blur with Naruto filling it with training and visiting his favorite ramen stand. He did end up introducing Hikaru to them after she shifted her appearance to look like someone Naruto`s age. They found her to be a nice, if a tad quiet and well behaved person. They did wonder why Naruto never brought her around before after introducing her as an old friend. But she quickly explained it away by saying she had to do a lot of traveling before and was very busy.

During the week, the Hokage had to deal with several meetings about the upcoming team assignments. And the biggest surprise was the visit from Hiashi.

"Greetings lord Hokage. I would ask for Hinata to be placed on a team with Naruto Uzumaki."

That statement was enough to leave the Hokage in more than a bit of shock. To have the clan head of the Hyūga, one of the most prestigious and powerful clans in the village, ask for their heir to be placed with the village pariah.

"I know most of my clan elders would protest this team assignment. But I have watched the effect the boy has on my daughter over the years and I believe separating them would be devastating for her. And harmful to her development in the long term."

Sarutobi, after a lot of deliberation, decided to make well balanced and flexible teams rather than specific focus teams as he had originally planned.

* * *

><p><strong>Team assignments.<strong>

Several hours before their new team assignments were to be announced, Naruto was already found in the classroom, eagerly waiting for Hinata to arrive and to find out who would be in his team. He kept chatting to Hinata after she arrived, also noticeably earlier than most of the class. Not knowing she had used her byakugan to track his arrival and had hurried once she saw him here.

After a while, when everyone had arrived, the large classroom was filled to the brim. There were nearly sixty people in the room. Though Naruto was more interested in assignments for his class than for the others classes graduating from the same year. Though he was happy that this years assignments started from one with bulk of the lower number team numbers having been freed up. Not from team 418 like last year`s classes had gotten.

Finally, Iruka arrived with the papers for the team assignments in his hands.

He started listing off the teams, finally reaching first team for their class.

"Team seven is Uchiha Sasuke, Kiba Inuzuka and Shino Aburame under jounin sensei Kakashi Hatake."

"Team eight is Naruto Uzumaki, Hinata Hyūga and Ino Yamanaka under jounin sensei Kurenai Yūhi."

Several less important teams got announced, at least less important from Naruto`s point of view. Finally reaching team 10.

"Team ten Shikamaru Nara, Chōji Akimichi and Sakura Haruno."

Responses during the announcements varied. With both Ino and Sakura complaining about not being on Sasuke`s team. And Naruto was loudly cheering on being teamed with Hinata with an actual cheer from Hinata herself, once she realized she was teamed with both Naruto and the mother figure of her life, Kurenai. After the grumbling from both Ino and Sakura had gone on for a while, Shino commented that the team assignments make sense. "Each team seems to be built with a specific focus while allowing for some flexibility, both team seven and eight are well rounded assault teams." Team seven having Sasuke for ranged combat with ninjutsu and Kiba close range with his clan's taijutsu and Shino with his bugs for support. While having tracking from both Kiba and Shino´s bugs and ways to get info out of a target through genjutsu from Sasuke once his sharingan awakens. Team eight having Hinata as the taijutsu expert, able to rapidly disable a target at close range. Naruto, with long range through ninjutsu (Shino due to his bugs, was well aware of Naruto`s chakra pools being unusually large) and finally Ino for support. With tracking from Hinata due to byakugan and Ino being able to interrogate with the help of her clan jutsu.

And finally, team ten having Shikamaru as the tactician of the team, with strong ability to hamper enemy movement. Chōji as close range heavy hitter relying more on power than speed. And Sakura as support through genjutsu.

After all teams got announced, they had to wait for their sensei`s to come and pick up the teams. Naruto spent his time dragging Hinata over to Ino and trying to start a chat with her. Despite her complaining about being teamed with them. After a bit she did end up talking to Hinata about fashion, actually congratulating her when she found out it was her that convinced Naruto to not wear full orange. Teams left one by one with the their sensei`s arriving. With team eights sensei being last one besides team sevens who were probably in for a long wait. Something that Hinata told to Naruto, having heard about Kakashi being late for everything from Kurenai.

Once their sensei arrived, it was instantly visible that she was a very beautiful woman with long black, shoulder-length untamed hair and very unique red colored eyes. She was wearing a red mesh armor blouse with only the right sleeve visible. Over this was very broad material, which resembled bandages with a pattern on it similar to those of rose thorns. Her hands and upper thighs were also wrapped in bandages and she was wearing the Konoha Hitai-ate and regular shinobi sandals. Kurenai told them that there would be a graduation test from her as well and to meet her on training ground 12.

* * *

><p><strong>The test.<strong>

Next morning all three of them arrived at the training ground only to find their teacher already there. "Good, all three are here on time. Your task for today is to simply manage to touch me once before noon." Hearing that, Naruto simply lunged at her rapidly. To his shock, rather than touching her, she simply dissolved.

"Naruto that was a genjutsu, can't you even recognize simple illusions" said annoyed Ino, no way was she allowing herself to be sent back to the academy. She had spent way too much time training to fail now.

"Not my fault, I've never had anyone to practice against for illusions." Declared Naruto.

"OK Hinata, you try and see if you can find her with your byakugan, also keep an eye on my clones in case any of them start acting weird." Ordered Naruto, while summoning nearly a hundred clones, who rapidly spread out to comb through the training ground.

"Ino, if you have any useful advice feel free to give it as I know near nothing about your abilities. While I know exactly what I and Hinata can do." After saying that, he focused for a few seconds summoning few more clones who rapidly transformed into birds and flew off to the great shock of Ino.

"_OK, I guess there's more to him than that what was visible in the academy. How was I supposed to know he actually has a clue on what to do, when he was always goofing off in academy outside the training spars." _thought Ino while trying to think on how to be useful in this situation.

"I think I can stop her from moving, if I can get a clear shot at her, with my clan jutsu. The attack itself is invisible." After also explaining her body swap jutsu to her new teammates, Naruto quickly thought up a plan, with having her possess him to get close enough to Kurenai, in order to trap her. As she would not be expecting that jutsu from him.

After a while of searching, Hinata noticed that one of Naruto`s clones was running in a circle around a clearing, after some closer looking she saw that the whole clearing was covered in a net of chakra.

"I think I found her, there's a clone of you stuck in a genjutsu, circling a clearing nearby." After carefully sneaking near the clearing, they saw Kurenai simply sitting on a rock in the middle of the clearing, reading a book. They tried sending a clone to find traps and as expected, the moment the clone got near the clearing it changed directions and started circling the clearing just like the one from before was still doing. Naruto focused and dispersed the clone from a distance, getting a memory of simply approaching the clearing and then simply running towards it without even wondering why the clearing was not getting any closer. Yep, genjutsu and an advanced one, considering that the clone knew there was a trap yet was unable to think it weird, when it obviously was.

After some more focused searching from Hinata, she found a path from one side of the clearing, directly in front of Kurenai, where there was no chakra patterns showing that there was a safe path to approach from.

Enacting the plan before, Ino used her mind body swap jutsu to attempt to take over Naruto.

At the same time Hikaru had already agreed with Naruto that while normally Ino`s clan jutsu would not work on taking him over she could make it work on him by helping guide Ino from the seal, where she was likely to end up in to being in control fast enough for her not to notice anything being wrong.

On activating her jutsu, Ino was confused for a moment as she found herself in a clearing, in front of a nice looking house. But a moment later she was looking out through Naruto`s eyes while thinking. _"I can literally feel his mind, I think he could rip back the control in an instant if he wanted to and the burning pool of chakra within him, o god. OK focus girl, you can wonder about how strong Naruto really is later." _After her inner dialogue, Ino focused on moving into the clearing as fast as she could, being amazed just how fast that actually was. Half way into the clearing, Kurenai stood up stating "Frontal charge against the genjutsu mistress of Konoha is a bad idea." To her surprise, Naruto simply dropped to one knee going through a few hand-signs, having only a moment she recognized it. _"So that was their plan, I guess they did good enough actually using the strength of all three of them." _thought Kurenai, not bothering to move out of the way of the invisible jutsu she knew was coming. Moment later, Naruto collapsed for a moment before standing up. While Kurenai simply walked up to him. Giving him a handshake. Followed by cheering from her. "We passed! We are awesome!" the cheering lasted only for a moment before Ino found herself being forcefully shoved out and back into her own body.

"Yep, all three of you have passed. Now gather around so we can do some overall introductions and a general overview of our strengths and weaknesses to each other. We need to know what we can all do to work together. And in the future, please leave the cheering till you're in your own body rather than mine." At that statement, Ino blushed while muttering apologies.

"OK, as an introduction before we get to strengths and weaknesses list your likes, dislikes, hobby's, and dream for the future. I'll start."

"As you already know, I am Kurenai Yūhi, also known as the genjutsu mistress of Konoha. My likes are genjutsu, takowasa (octopus and wasabi) and drinks in the bar with my friend, my dislikes are smoking and people who think kunoichi are weaker than shinobi. Hobbies are creating new genjutsu and writing. My ambition is to prove that kunoichi are just as strong as shinobi if not stronger. OK, you next, blondie

At that, both Naruto and Ino attempted to start talking at the same time. Something that got Hinata giggling at both of them. After a short bit of bickering over who would go first, Naruto took his turn.

"My name is Naruto Uzumaki. My likes are training, my friends and ramen. My dislikes are people, who look down on me for something I had no say in and anyone that tries to hurt my friends. My hobbies are training, pranks and seals. My dream for the future is to help a friend and to become the strongest shinobi ever, so I can protect everyone precious to me."

Ino`s introduction was next.

"My name is Ino Yamanaka. My likes are fashion, training and Sasuke-kun. My dislikes are people who make fun of my name and perverts. My hobby is growing flowers and training my clan jutsu. My dream is to become a strong kunoichi so that my clan can be proud of me and learning all my clan jutsu`s."

"My name is Hinata Hyūga. My likes are Naruto (while blushing bright red), training and flowers. My dislikes are cruel people and being picked on for being shy. Also most of my clan considering me weak simply because I am kind. My hobbies are training and flower pressing. My dream is to remove the seal that separates my clan."

After the introduction, Kurenai brought them all to a barbeque restaurant as reward for passing their test. Once at the barbeque restaurant, the owner tried to prevent Naruto`s entry but after some harsh whispered words from Kurenai, let them in. All the while glaring at Naruto, for rest of the evening. They spent their time talking, trying to get to know each other better. Also leaving Ino and Kurenai amazed at the quantity of food Naruto consumed. With Kurenai silently deciding that her buying them food, would have to be a really special occasion in the future. As Naruto could probably eat more than she earns. At the end of the evening where all of them had fun just getting to know each other and Naruto recounting many of the pranks they had done. Also telling Ino of how Hinata had helped in them, they agreed to meet again tomorrow morning for an overview of their skills. And for some practice, before starting their first mission for the village.

Next day found all of them again in training ground 12. Where they sat together to discuss the strengths and weaknesses each of them had and how to use them better.

"To start with, I do have a bloodline giving me some advantages in combat. I have very good senses, I can even see in the dark and track people by smell. If needed, I can focus chakra into my hands to have claws even if I don't know any fighting style yet to take advantage of it." He then demonstrated, his nails shifting into claws, becoming longer and sharper. "I also have a very very big chakra pool. To balance that, it makes control very hard for me. I have been doing control exercises for years and I am still pretty bad at it. And I heal far faster than most people."

Hinata, already knowing all of that, was not surprised, the ones that were surprised were both Ino and Kurenai. The latter of the two already getting working on a plan, on how to start, removing his control issues.

"Jutsu wise I know the academy three and three different shadow-clone ones." He then demonstrated by summoning three clones one by one. "The normal shadow-clone is weaker than I am and disperses on taking any damage." he demonstrates that by hitting the clone who disperses. "Then I can make an improved clone that is a lot tougher and stronger" Demonstrating by having a quick spar with the clone, with the clone taking kunai wounds that near instantly vanished, after a while the clone disperses. "It takes huge chunk of my chakra each time it's hurt. But outside of me running out of chakra or being hit by an instantly lethal attack, the clone does not disperse. And finally the improved clones can explode." One of the clones walks to the edge of the clearing detonating. Naruto winces at the memory. "I can make the explosion bigger based on how much I put into the clone initially. I also have to deal with getting memory of dying. Unlike normal shadow-clones, these ones actually last long enough to feel the pain of exploding, and getting stabbed. I don't know any jutsu outside these."

Kurenai was more than impressed about the shadow-clones, deciding to ask more about them later.

Ino decided to get him to teach her how to create those.

"My strengths are my clans taijutsu style. My chakra control is very good. Also, my clan's bloodline limit, byakugan, allows me a full vision in any direction up to few kilometers away. Even allowing me to see through solid objects." At that, Ino quickly interferes asking if she can see through clothes. At that Hinata just squeaks and faints. After the interruption of waiting for her to wake up, she continues her explanation. While Ino just files away the fact that yes, Hinata has seen everyone in class naked. "And my weaknesses would have to be not knowing any jutsu except the academy three. And lack of long range attacks."

"My strengths are my clan jutsu and good chakra control. Outside academy jutsu I know my clan body swap jutsu and few jutsu`s allowing me to view or share memories with people. My weaknesses would have to be taijutsu and my body being unresponsive, when using my clan jutsu. Something that will improve with time, allowing me to keep some control while invading others."

After Ino finishes her own overview comes Kurenai`s turn. "My strengths are my excellent chakra control. Along with a large arsenal of genjutsu and some medical jutsu`s. Also my speed in both moving and thinking. I also have large amount of actual combat experience. My weakness would have to be physical strength and overall taijutsu."

With their get to know weaknesses and strengths chat done they swapped to some light sparring, once again proving, that Hinata was far stronger than either Naruto or Ino, in that category. With Naruto lasting a while against her but being able to easily stomp through Ino`s defense. To the shock of the three genin`s despite Kurenai stating that her biggest weakness was taijutsu, she easily defeated Hinata. Proving that she, as a jounin, was far better than any of them even in her self-confessed weakness taijutsu.

With training done for the morning, they quickly ate lunch before going to the Hokage`s tower for their first missions, with all three being eager to see what cool missions they would get. First mission ever ended up being catching Tora, the cat who ran away from home. Five brutal hours later, both Ino and Naruto decided it was the cat from hell. Both covered in scratch marks that rapidly healed off Naruto. With Hinata stating the cat is the cutest thing ever. The cat was calmly in her hands, purring while she petted it. With the other two glaring at the cat. After handing in their first mission and now knowing D rank missions were simple chores and praying to get real missions soon.

That was their main schedule for the next few months. Training in mornings. Missions after noon and private training time in the evening. With them spending few evenings in a week, training together and few days with both Ino and Hinata having training time with their clans.

After a while, Ino noticed near everyone hating or ignoring Naruto. Something that made no sense to her. So one evening she asked her father about it.

"Dad, why does everyone seem to hate Naruto?" Inoichi froze at the question from his daughter, trying to think of a way to answer it.

"He is dangerous, you should try to keep distance from him."

"But that's almost as bad as everyone else! What has he done that makes everyone think he is dangerous?" asked Ino, clearly seeing that the topic made her father uncomfortable. Something that was clear to her with her clan training, focusing a lot on understanding people's behavior and emotions.

"Honey I can't tell you. I just can't." Was the response from the now miserable looking father.

"That makes no sense. And Naruto himself refuses to answer as well. What does everyone know that I'm missing?" stated Ino while stomping off feeling annoyed.

One evening, with Naruto and Hinata hanging out at Naruto`s apartment talking about their team, Naruto remembered to summon Hikaru to meet Hinata. The meeting was a tad awkward at start but after a while those two did manage to find topics to talk about. Main subject, much to his embarrassment, being Naruto.


	8. Chapter 7 First C rank, off to wave

"_Thoughts"_

"**Voice loaded with power or very loud shouting"**

"_**Mind speak"**_

"Normal talk"

I do not own Naruto or any of the characters therein.

Also changed the formatting of the story a bit and yes Haku in my story is a girl and it will play relevance far later into the story.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 7<strong>

**First C rank, off to wave.**

After several weeks of doing D rank missions, Kurenai felt that her team was ready for their first C rank mission. On arriving to the mission hall they walked up to the chuunin responsible for handing out most low end missions.

„Hi kids, how about catching Tora again as tonight's mission." At that statement both Ino and Naruto looked very annoyed with only Hinata getting a nice beaming smile. Neither blond could figure out just why or how Tora liked Hinata. The hellcat had not caused a simple scratch on her, with main strategy ending up to herd the cat near her, where it would become calm and purr in Hinata`s arms till they could hand it in. Either Naruto or Ino trying to touch, the cat got them very well acquainted with the claws.

„I think we have to pass that today, I think my little team is ready for a C rank mission." responded Kurenai. At that statement, both blonds got again identical exited happy looks with Hinata looking tad worried. „Are you sure we are ready? I have heard people die on missions above D rank. "

„Don´t worry, even if something goes wrong, there's still me, a fully-fledged jounin with you." answered Kurenai, calming down Hinata`s worries. _„I hope we run into a few minor bandits as the kids need to get their first kills at some point. And it is always a shock at first time and freezing when fighting an enemy shinobi in the future would be lethal for them. "_

At the same time unknown to any of them, Hikaru was worried. _„There are so many risks out there and Naruto is still vulnerable. But eventually we will have strong opponents coming after us. I have never heard of a Jinchuuriki not put on front lines on lethal fights. So he must get stronger. "_

The mission they got was an escort to wave country, for a bridge builder named Tazuna, and protection till he finished building his bridge. With estimated mission time being a month, they headed off to get all their travel materials ready. Knowing that tomorrow morning they would meet their client at the village gate.

On arriving home, Naruto started rapidly packing everything essential into a set of storage scrolls, putting them away into separate pockets or bags on his person. Attaching all the weapons he normally carried around and generally panicking over his first mission out of village.

Ino got some advice from her father on what to take with her and what to leave home. She got firmly told that she was not going to pack a mirror and a full makeup set into her bag. After packing all the essentials away she ended up with a rather decent sized backpack.

Hinata had it easier, she already had a per-packed set of essentials prepared beforehand and packed into scrolls, courtesy of Naruto, so much easier with a handy set of storage seals at hand. She also added her newest homemade medical cream's into a scroll in her pouch, again being thankful, that Naruto could make storage scroll and charge them to be usable. The scrolls from local weapon shops would have cost more than her month's allowance.

Kurenai just grabbed her ready-made set of part sealed part normally packaged equipment wishing storage scrolls were not so expensive.

The next day they all arrived at the gate. Kurenai at first was worried about Naruto and Hinata being unprepared, but on seeing everything in scrolls just had to envy the supply of storage scrolls both of them had.

"Did you get the scrolls from your clan?" asked Kurenai from Hinata.

"No Naruto made them."

"But storage scrolls are hard to make and expensive." was Kurenai`s surprised response.

"Naah, I can make them easy, only reason they are expensive is the amount of time it normally takes to charge them with chakra, to make them usable. I even brought extras in-case we needed more." stated Naruto, taking out a scroll and unsealing a stack of storage scrolls. And to the amazement of Kurenai, simply split them between Ino and her, so they could more easily pack their things.

They easily finished repacking their things and continued to wait for the client. An hour later they were still waiting and were getting seriously annoyed.

Finally, three hours later, the client arrived with an alcohol bottle at hand and smelling strongly of alcohol.

Looking indecorously at the team assigned to guard him, Tazuna while staring at, them stated "I thought that I would get a group of ninjas to guard me, instead I have three kids and the lady taking care of them." At that both Ino and Naruto got angry, with even Hinata looking annoyed.

Kurenai calmly answered "They might look like kids but they can easily defeat bandits. And I am a well-trained jounin." At that she simply dissolved and continued, much to the shock of Tazuna, from behind him. "It is a bad idea to judge ninja simply based on age or appearance."

Tazuna, now feeling slightly scared of the beautiful woman standing right next to him, decided to try and not make her angry and simply asked that they would get going.

They headed out in a formation surrounding Tazuna with Hinata regularly using byakugan to check the surroundings and Naruto sending a few clones into the surrounding woods and further ahead.

That evening while setting up camp Kurenai asked if they had seen anything unusual at all, just to go over what Hinata and Naruto had seen on their scouting. She herself had not felt any chakra signatures besides their own at all. She was a tad amazed at the huge difference between Naruto`s signature and his actual chakra capacity. Based on his signature, she would have marked him off as having chakra equal to Hinata. Yet he had proven that his reserves were far bigger.

Hinata`s description of everything unusual or out of place she had seen, simply consisted of signs of a hunter camp, few kilometers off the road to the side and some random things spread in the forest. (Why there would be a seal based broken refrigerator in the middle of the forest was completely unknown to her…)

Naruto`s description was a lot different in style of all the things he had found. He had scouted a lot further with his clones than Hinata with her byakugan and had actually seen team 7 off in the distance heading in another direction, probably to their own mission. He had seen a puddle in the middle of the road, something he found weird considering the weather. But had decided it had been someone's spilled water due to the fact that few hours later, when they arrived there, it was gone.

A camp was then set up. A shared tent for Hinata and Ino and separate ones for everyone else. After the camp was ready it was decided who would stay watch first. Everyone else but Kurenai headed off to sleep. Later, following her would be Hinata, followed by Naruto, for the darkest parts of the night, due to the byakugan and Naruto`s good night sight with clones added. Ino got the part just around dawn, when she would be able to easily see due to the rising sun.

Once in the tent, Ino spent a little time trying to get Hinata to tell her why everyone seemed to treat Naruto badly. She just could not understand it, as despite being a bit silly occasionally, Naruto was actually a really nice and friendly guy, with Ino already considering him dependable.

Hinata`s answer was simple and to the point. "Because they are idiots. If you want a more specific reason, then only Naruto can tell you."

The night passed with nothing really happening, except the closer they got to wave, the more worried Tazuna seemed to get and the deeper into his sake bottles he went. Till the point that Kurenai actually confiscated the sake, explaining that defending him from suicide due to alcohol poisoning, would have to fall under the mission too. As a dead client would mean a failed mission.

They did have few amusing moments during the trip.

On one evening, cooking dinner around a campfire from a rabbit Naruto had killed in the forest, Ino complained about not having anywhere to sit. And Naruto simply going and picking up a nearby log and setting it down near the campfire, giving them all a comfortable place to sit at. Tazuna just stared at him for a while in shock until asking Kurenai on how a kid his size, could pick up a log several times bigger than he was.

"It is simple, we ninjas use chakra in everything. Also for boosting physical strength. Not just for flashy attacks. That is why all of us are far stronger than we appear. " Was the answer he got from Kurenai. She did not bother explaining about it being far more complex than that. With more chakra, the boost would get stronger but there would be limits, as too much would simply damage the muscle. Also the boost exponentially got stronger, depending on how strong the actual muscle being boosted was. With there only being a few exceptions, like Tsunade, who was able to immensely boost her strength past what should be possible. But no one had figured out how she did that.

Over the course of the trip, Tazuna told them about how poor everyone was and how the bridge would solve that. Kurenai voiced herself wondering, why they did not have a proper shipping company in the area to help transport things. Tazuna explaining that there was one company but that the prices they took for transport were very high. And that had been an issue, for a long time now.

Finally reaching the edge of the sea, they got their first glimpse of the massive bridge, looming over the sea. All of them were awed by the sheer size, through the mist the island they knew was at the other end, was not visible at all. Making it appear as if the bridge just went on forever.

Moving towards where Tazuna told his house was they headed along the shoreline. Moving through a bay, with forest surrounding them on three sides with open sea at fourth, the mist kept getting thicker and thicker, with each step. All of a sudden Hinata cried out "Down!" with everyone quickly ducking down, Ino pulling Tazuna to the ground with them. Only to have a massive cleaver fly over them. Moment later, a man landed on the huge sword, at first look it was clear that he was not a person to be messed with. He was tall and muscular, with short spiky brown hair, no eyebrows and bandages covering the lower half of his face. Wearing no shirt, with only a belt, going diagonally from his shoulder to his side and pants that were green and brown patterned.

Kurenai immediately recognized him from his Bingo book entry, knowing him to be highly dangerous.

"All three of you guard Tazuna, I will deal with him." All three of them moved around him quickly. With Naruto summoning more clones, sending them out to be better prepared.

Moments later, the mist got thicker, covering near everything from sight. And killing intent covered the field. Naruto was worried but he had dealt with killing intent far worse during practice with Hikaru.

But both Ino and Hinata had nothing to compare that to and were frozen in terror for a moment. Hinata, on seeing Naruto looking calm, focused and pulled herself together while thinking _"I will not fail him now!"_

Ino on the other hand, simply pulled herself back together on seeing the focused look on both her team partners looks. _"I am not going to be outdone by the shy girl and blondie"_ Again completely ignoring the fact she was blond as well.

Suddenly hearing a deep voice from the mist that seemed to be coming from all around. "There are eight points in the body that I can stab to instantly kill you."

All of a sudden, seeing Kurenai dodging down and to the side, only to have the giant sword impact the ground, at the spot she was standing on, mere moments ago. The tree genin`s looked on in awe, as the man yet again vanished into the mist. With Kurenai looking more than a little worried. _„I need to catch him in a genjutsu soon, I can't keep up with him in a close quarters fight. And I lack the strength needed to actually block that __monster of a sword."_During the next few minutes, Kurenai dodged several more times, only to barley avoid being cut. The fight between those two had moved onto water, with Kurenai having to keep retreating in order to stay alive.

Suddenly, hearing the voice from the mist again „All you need to do, is to give up the old man. I got paid to kill him, if you leave him I won´t have any quarrel with you or the kids." Getting an answer from Kurenai „Sorry, but we can't do that." Finally seeing an opportunity, after noticing Zabuza just a few moments earlier into his attack, she went through a quick set of hand-seals. Moments later, Zabuza`s next attack landed, with Kurenai dodging directly under the sideways swing.

What followed was a flurry of swings from Zabuza into emptiness, with Kurenai rapidly moving around, from the side to directly behind Zabuza with a kunai in hand. Just as she was about to hit, a few senbons flew through the air at her. With few hitting her wrist, forcing her, to drop the kunai. And one of the senbon hitting Zabuza into the side of his arm causing pain but almost no damage only piercing the skin. Yet that was enough to break the genjutsu that he was under. Rapidly recognizing that he had been in a genjutsu, he turned around sweeping his sword. And this time Kurenai was not fast enough to dodge completely, getting a nasty gash through her side slicing between the ribs cutting into one of her lungs. Followed by a kick in the stomach, propelling her towards shoreline. Taking short shallow breaths, she quickly ordered her genin "Run there´s nothing more we can do." Moments later coughing up some more blood.

Naruto, who had this far been watching the fight from the sideline, decided there and then, that no matter what, he would not let one of the few people who had truly been nice to him die. But regognizing that he had no chance against the man standing on water he asked Hikaru _"Hikaru, do you think you can do anything to give me a chance at stopping him?" _

"_**Yes. If I flood your system with my youki. It should make you strong enough to defeat him and probably his partner hiding in the nearby trees. But you will need to hurry. You will not last more than ten minutes like this, before you collapse from the strain."**_

"Hinata, Ino try and see if you can do anything to help Kurenai. I am going to do something very risky, be careful not do to anything aggressive appearing against me." He said to his teammates, knowing full well from Hikaru`s explanations in the past that using large amounts of youki, he would go near feral if not fully berserk, due to not really being able to handle large amounts yet.

Hinata and Ino were both shocked at that statement, feeling terrified of the man that had just defeated their sensei. Ino wondering what the hell Naruto meant _"He is going to get himself killed, he has no chance. And what the hell does he mean by "don't do anything to make you appear aggressive to me"?"_

Moments later, the whole area is flooded with killing intent. All originating from Naruto. He starts slowly walking towards Zabuza, not slowing in the least when stepping on water. Something both Ino and Hinata knew he did not know how to do. Only having a week ago seen him struggle with water walking exercise.

Slowly Naruto`s features became more and more feral. The whisker mark lines on his face deepening and become darker. His eyes slowly shifting from blue to red. His hands shifting from normal state to claws. And even his hair standing further out, spikier.

Moments later, they heard a deep growl coming from Naruto, followed by a deep terrifying sounding voice that could not be Naruto`s **"I WILL KILL YOU!"**

Moments later, a visible red glow started seeping through his skin, twirling around him and settling in the form of a red cloak with ears at top and tail behind himself.

Zabuza suddenly looking nervous yelling **"Fuck it's a Jinchuuriki, Haku onto the water now and mirrors if we want to survive this. Don't do your normal incapacitate crap, it won´t work, go for killing blows."**

Moment later Naruto moved over water in a direct line, towards Zabuza. Zabuza swung his sword in a sideways arc, to try and cleave the boy in two. Yet Naruto, without any hesitation, simply fell on all fours, passing under the sword and swiping at him with his clawed hand, covered in red chakra further extending his reach. Zabuza, proving he was far from weak, still managed to dodge the swipe. Rapidly turned his sword mid swing and swung down towards Naruto, who seemingly not even noticing the sword tried another swipe. Ending up knocked back as a kick, courtesy of Zabuza, fast followed by a swing, that cleaved through Naruto`s shoulder. Yet moments later, the shoulder healed, with visible steam coming from the wound.

In the meantime, the two girls had started heading for where Kurenai lay against a tree, with Hinata already unsealing the medical equipment she had. Tazuna followed the girls, being absolutely terrified. _"Is the kid even human?"_

Kurenai was worried _"Is the kyuubi breaking free? That can't be Naruto, he is only attacking with barely any regard for his own safety. He is only avoiding things that would instantly kill him?"_

Haku had finally made it out of the trees and onto the water, going through hand-seals for her technique already. Moments later, both Naruto and Zabuza were in a large dome made of ice mirrors. Haku quickly jumped into one of the mirrors. Rapidly starting to throw senbon needles made out of ice at Naruto. Only to watch as Naruto seemed to be completely unaffected. Each senbon that hit, was moments later pushed out of his body by the wound healing.

After several more clashes between Naruto and Zabuza, Haku managed to throw several senbon`s into the enraged jinchuuriki`s face. Pulling his attention away from Zabuza, who quickly used the chance, to start on hand-seal`s for a powerful jutsu.

Haku swapped from mirror to mirror as rapidly as she could. Hoping to distract the creature they were facing thinking _"What the hell is he? Zabuza said Jinchuuriki what is that?"_,all the while praying that it is enough for Zabuza to manage to finish him off. The senbon`s were barley working as a distraction and hopeless in stopping him. Every needle thrown, either melted or was pushed out of the healing wounds in moments.

Haku threw another set of ice needles, swapping to yet another mirror, wandering how the hell, was the boy keeping up with her swaps. He seemed to know exactly where she was, despite the illusions covering all the empty mirrors.

Needles midflight, Naruto charged smashing the needles out of his path with a roar, releasing massive amounts of chakra into the air. Reaching the mirror, he hit the mirror with a simple punch, going straight through it. Haku rapidly jumped out through one of the bigger shards, trying to speed towards the next nearest mirror to teleport further away. Yet Naruto reacted almost instantly, grabbing onto her arm. Yet before he could do more than grab her, he got hit by a massive dragon made out of water. Freeing Haku and propelling him further away, straight out of the dome of mirrors. Haku spent a moment looking at the arm that had been grabbed and the fact there were deep burn marks where she got grabbed before moving straight back into the nearest mirror.

Naruto simply landed a distance away, just staring at the water dragon for a moment, then charged straight back into the dome, attacking the water dragon. And to the shock of everyone, going straight through the attack this time, without even slowing down, he once again charged towards Zabuza Who rapidly jumped to the side, already swinging his massive sword and finally managing a blow to the midair Naruto. Cleaving off his right arm.

Both of his team-members and Kurenai were in a shock at that sight. Naruto just stopped on water looking at where his hand was moments ago. Near instantly the bleeding stopped and moments later the claw like mass of chakra bursting out, in form of a clawed hand just as before. Yet this time, there was no hand inside it.

And yet again he simply charged straight at Zabuza, who attempted the previous maneuver of dodge and cleave. With Haku throwing a steady stream of senbon`s from the side as a distraction.

This time Naruto`s claw of pure chakra, simply grabbed hold of the cleaver, using it as platform to pull himself onto and jumped straight towards Zabuza`s face. The claw of chakra passed straight through the head of Zabuza, leaving pieces of brain and skull flying through the air. And even before Zabuza`s corpse landed, Naruto was already charging towards the ice mirror that had Haku in it. Haku, simply staring in shock at her now dead master, did not react in time to the blow that shattered the mirror she was in. Flying out of it, she was grabbed midair and smashed to the ground. With Naruto simply grabbing her off the ground and repeating the action several times. Once Haku stopped moving, Naruto just crouched on all four looking around.

The group watching was horrified of the brutality of the fight they had witnessed. Naruto did not fight with skill or tactics. Simply brute force and speed. Moments after they watched him beat Haku into the ground, he stopped. Then, to the horror of all three, turned to their way, growling on all four, he approached rapidly. Then froze simply a few steps away, still growling and staring at them. All three of them were absolutely terrified.

At the same time from Naruto`s point of view _"Prey? Threat?"_

"_**NO, Calm down try to push my youki back into the seal! "**_

Hikaru was more than little worried at that point. She had not expected for the youki to override Naruto`s reason quite that much. Desperately trying to calm him down to stop him attacking his friends. Attacking them would keep the massive amount of youki burning his body even longer. And killing the closest thing he had to a family, would completely destroy him. She kept desperately trying to pull the youki back into the seal.

Moments later, Naruto seemed to comprehend something. And with an act of pure will, pushed the chakra back into the seal, them he collapsed onto his knees.

"Are you guys OK?" Asked the still dazed looking Naruto. Moments later losing consciousness.

Hinata, after a moment of hesitation ran over to him and after quickly checking him over, told the other two "He is alive, but he appears to be burned all over. And his arm..."

After some bandaging and tiny bit of medical jutsu Kurenai knew to stop her own bleeding. Not able to truly heal herself, yet healing enough to not die in the next few minutes, they slowly made their way over to Tazuna`s house.

"O god!" Was the shocked response from Tsunami, when opening the door to her house, seeing her father, along with three kids and a woman, all covered in blood.

After a bit they had managed to carefully move all of them into the house, with Kurenai lying asleep on the couch regularly coughing, due to the damage to her lung. And Naruto bandaged around where his arm used to be. Asleep in Tsunami's bedroom on the first floor. None of them wanting to risk further damages to either by moving them up the stairs.

Ino sent off the messenger hawk, summoned through the scroll Kurenai had on her, to Konoha going over what had happened, asking for assistance. Writing who they had met and the state Naruto and Kurenai were in. Unknown to them, the scroll ended up in the hands of Mizuki who blamed Naruto for being booted out of the simple job in the academy due to sabotaging Naruto in class during his first year. _"The demon and his bitches deserve everything they get"_ were the thoughts of the delusional man.

That evening, after the two girls had checked both Kurenai and Naruto, with Ino fuzzing over Kurenai worried as she was now running a high fever. And Hinata checking Naruto as Ino was afraid of even approaching him.

That evening Ino asked Hinata. "Do you know what happened to Naruto? He seemed to know what was about to happen, considering he warned us to be careful and to not appear as a threat."

"Yes, I have a fairly good idea of what exactly went on. But I can't tell you. The specifics on why Naruto was able to do that are classed as an S rank village secret. I think I am the only one of our age, beside Naruto, that knows. Anyone, besides him or the Hokage, telling anyone else would end up with an execution."

At that Ino was more than a little shocked. "So even my own parents could not tell me? And only one that can tell me is Naruto himself." Resolving to get an answer out of Naruto, one way or another. They both split the watch during the night between themselves.

During the next day nothing got better. Kurenai was only awake for tiny bits of time. With her fever getting higher and higher. And Naruto staying unconscious.

On the third day after arriving at the house, Naruto finally woke up. Finding himself too weak to even stand up he ended up being fed by Hinata. Who decided that she really liked feeding Naruto, even if not the reason for doing it and even Ino finding it more than little amusing, to watch the spectacle. Till the moment her eyes yet again drifted to where Naruto`s hand had been. Feeling more than little depressed, thinking that Naruto can't continue being a ninja with just one hand.

Few hours later, Naruto feeling strong enough to move, all three gathered at Kurenai to talk over what to do.

"I don't think I am getting better, it's getting harder and harder to breath. The wound was too deep and probably infected. Without a proper medic-nin I probably won't last till tomorrow night." her words constantly interrupted by the coughing.

"_Hikaru, do you think you can somehow heal her? You always help me heal." _

"_**It is not quite as simple. Your body already uses chakra to regenerate. But I think I can do it, if you form a body for me. But are you sure it's a good idea revealing me to everyone?"**_

"_There is not much of a choice, I refuse to lose her." _

"I think I have a way of healing her. But I want all of you to swear that you will not tell anyone of what you see."

Feeling more than little worried of exactly what Naruto was thinking of, they nonetheless agreed not having any other options. Both girls being unwilling to accept losing Kurenai. And Kurenai herself simply having no other options left and deciding to trust her students.

"Fine I promise, but you will tell me what the hell happened in that fight." Was Ino`s slightly fearful sounding response.

After a moment, Naruto tried forming the hand-seal for the full sequence of hand-seals needed for shadow clones. Normally able to use just the start of the row, having done the clones so often, by now to be able to skip most of the long set. After a moment seeming to realize he could not form them with one hand. _"A little help here." _A moment later, to the absolute terror of Ino, who quickly backed to a nearby wall, a hand, made of the same red chakra, formed. With Kurenai looking more than a bit worried at the claw like hand. Moments later, both the ethereal red clawed arm and the normal one, went through the full shadow-clone hand-seal set. And moments later, a large burst of chakra smoke formed next to Naruto.

To the amazement to everyone in the room, including Tsunami, looking on from the doorway, there was a redhead woman in a comfortable looking white dress. Ino looking on thinking "She is beautiful. How the hell could Naruto summon a human? I thought summons were only animals." Hinata not looking surprised at all and Kurenai thinking _"Those were hand-seals for a shadow clone. That is most definitely not a shadow-clone of Naruto. That can only be the kyuubi, but that can't be kyuubi?"_ Feeling more than a bit confused.

"Hello, my name is Hikaru and I would really appreciate if you left the questions till after I have healed you."

Saying that, she walked over to where Kurenai was laying down.

"Hinata, could you pass one of the chairs here, I need to be able to fully focus on healing her." After getting the chair she asked for she sat down right next to Kurenai.

"This will hurt more than just a bit." after that she focused for a moment till her hands glowed red. Placing them over Kurenai`s wounds, she focused.

After few moments saying "Your whole lung is filled with blood. And you got a sever blood poisoning from the infection on the wound." said Hikaru. Kurenai thinking _"Just the scan was painful, the healing will be insane." _

"Your body has no resistance to youki, so I will need work as carefully as I can." After saying that she got to work.

Calmly, to the shock of everyone watching, pushing a finger into the wound, with a focused look, she pulled the finger back out with a stream of red chakra following, pulling out rotten looking blood and fluids. All the while her other hand was on the side near the wound.

Rest of the session was a steady pace of cleaning out things that should not be in the lung and slowly rebuilding the lung, until finally closing the wound. Not even leaving a tiny scar.

At the end she told them she needs to sleep and the focus needed to heal a human like that, left even her tired and she needed sleep, vanishing in a burst of smoke.

Naruto headed into his mind-scape. Finding Hikaru firmly asleep in a bed, in the house he built into his mind.

"_This is the first time I have ever seen her asleep. She looks so peaceful." _Adjusting the blanket from the floor, onto her.

After that, he allowed himself to truly fall asleep as well.

Ino spent her half of the night on the watch, thinking and trying to figure out who the woman Naruto summoned was.

During the same time, Gato heard about Tazuna having continued on the bridge, wandered about what happened to the missing nin he hired. Finally deciding on just gathering a large amount of bandits to attack and completely eradicate the town that dared to not submit. He got to work, organizing the bandits needed to remove the town and the troublemakers. Thinking _"Wasting money on those missing nin was pointless. The bandits will do the same job for a lot less money and more reliably." _Being able to afford several hundred bandits for the money that Zabuza and his apprentice had cost him.

* * *

><p>Kurenai woke up, confused for a moment on what was going on, after a moment remembering last night's amazing healing, she tried standing up. While feeling a tad weak, with a weird faint burning sensation all over her body, she, to her surprise, succeeded. After testing that, yes she could walk reliably, despite still feeling weak, and breath properly again. She woke the two sleeping genin and called Hinata, who was keeping watch on the roof inside, they yet again gathered into the living room. The living room itself was rather simple, open to the kitchen with only one book case on the side and two bedrolls that the girls had used in a corner.<p>

"OK I guess I owe you guys some explanations." Said Naruto, while trying to figure out exactly how to explain everything, after a bit of thinking he yet again focuses. And with an intense look of concentration, forming the chakra claw again. Allowing him to do the hand-seals to yet again summon Hikaru, who simply walks over, grabs a chair and sits down on the side of the group.

"Remember when in school they told us about kyuubi, attacking Konoha. And about the Fourth defeating her in a suicidal attack?" Kurenai instantly picking up on the fact, that he called kyuubi her.

"What does that have to do with anything? Everyone knows that." Asked Ino.

"The thing is that is not exactly the truth."

"What do you mean? Why would everyone lie to us something like that?" asked Ino.

"Because the Hokage made it a law, making it illegal to tell what really happened that night. And even he does not know all of it."

"The fourth could not defeat kyuubi. So he did the only thing he could. He sealed her. My birthday is October 10th, I was born the night kyuubi attacked. And seeing as I was a conveniently available newborn, I got used as the human to seal her into. Supposedly nothing, except a living newborn child, was strong, yet adaptive enough, to be able to survive having the seal." After a deep breath he continued "What I did against that big sword dude, was pulling on large enough amount of her chakra to be able to defeat him. As you might have noticed I was not quite as in control as I thought."

"So the kyuubi tried to take over and make you kill everything?" Asked Ino

"That was simply me, not being able to deal with that amount of youki. I could not really practice it in Konoha. That would have been felt for quite a distance. And having half of Konoha heading to kill me, would really not have helped."

"But who is she?" Asked Ino pointing at the redhead sitting next to them, while still trying to figure out the bombshell of a revelation she had received. _"So that's why they all hate him. Why the hell do they do that, he is a hero, without him we would all be dead."_

At that question, the redhead in question waves and responds. "Hi I am Hikaru. But I think you know me as kyuubi." At that statement Ino is instantly backed to the wall at back. With Kurenai looking really worried.

"And to calm you down I am not here to hurt you. So please calm down. First of all, to add to what Naruto stated, yes I did attack Konoha, but no, it was not willingly. Someone managed to take control of me and force me to attack. While I am most definitely not human, I have never really cared enough about humans to really interact much with them. Let alone bother attacking them. Only times I have fought humans before, have been the few times they attacked me."

"But there is the story of you attacking a minor village about forty years ago and destroying it." Quickly asked Kurenai, trying to figure out if the woman before her, was lying.

"I did not attack them. They attacked me without warning, managing to seal me within a human. The seal was weak, it only took me hours to break out. They had managed to travel back to the village in that time though and the force I used to break out was enough to annihilate their village. The idiots were trying to capture me to use as a weapon."

Having nothing much to say to that Kurenai asked why she had not done the same with the seal on Naruto.

"The seal is not strong enough to hold me, but it was far better made. It kept me asleep for the first five years after the sealing, slowly tying my life to Naruto. If not for that, I would have broken it instantly. If you don't trust me then trust the fact that working with Naruto is in my own best personal interest. I have no desire to harm Naruto as him dying would kill me aswell. And death is not something im willing to accept."

Not really being sure, if to believe her or not Kurenai decided to just trust in Naruto`s judgment for now. Seeing as she had saved her life, Hikaru deserved at least the benefit of a doubt.

Most of the day continued quietly with Kurenai spending most of the day resting same as Naruto. They did decide to start properly guarding Tazuna again the next day.

The next day Hinata agreed to be the one to go hunt for the day, seeing as Naruto had told them, he would be able to actually regrow his arm. But saying he actually needs to eat enough to have materials to regrow it. And his body being heavily drained from all the rapid healing he did in the fight with Zabuza. Along with recovering from having body wide chakra burns from the youki.

Nothing much happened that day except Tsunami fetching her son Inari from a nearby relative where she had sent him to, seeing several blood soaked people at her doorstep.

That evening when both Kurenai and Ino arrived back to the house along with Tazuna, both of them just froze at the sight of Hikaru along with Hinata chatting in the kitchen, cooking.

Later when eating the freshly cooked meal, Kurenai could not help but wonder the extreme contrast of the idea of a blood thirsty demon and the nice seeming woman, who had just helped cook for them. The meal was more than a bit awkward for the group, with Inari complaining about them throwing their lives away against unbeatable Gato, followed by stomping off to cry in his room. Gato had been revealed to the group as the person behind all the issues that plagued the town. Kurenai was still angry at Tazuna for not letting them know all the details and ending with a seriously misranked mission, despite his explanation of not having enough money for a high A rank mission.

Only ones who seemed completely at ease during the meal were Hikaru and Hinata, who spent bulk of the meal quietly chatting to each other. Ino commented on that "You knew about her before. Aren't you afraid of her?" Hinata`s response was a simple "I trust Naruto."

And Naruto was completely oblivious to everything except the food he was consuming in a frightening quantity. At the end of the meal, he let them know that he, with the help from Hikaru, were going to heal his arm. At that statement, Hikaru yet again simply dispersed. On the confused looks, he let them know that she needed to focus to help with it and having to split attention in two does not help that. And then they were treated to the gruesome sight of his arm re-growing in a matter of minutes. After re-growing his arm and trying that it moved properly, Naruto simply moved back to the table to get more food to eat.

Tazuna just watching and deciding _"Ninjas are monsters and insane, re-growing limbs, summoning people out of nowhere and finally eating more than anyone should be able to eat in a single meal." _

During the next few days, Naruto sent out a lot of clones to try and find out what Gato was planning and if there were any more dangers.

During that time, Kurenai tried to talk to the nice seeming girl to at-least gauge her personality better. One of the more interesting discussions were over the healing and the faint burning sensation Kurenai still felt in her body on occasions.

"Is the weird burning sensation I get from time to time from how you healed me?"

"Kind of, it's more about the tiny residue of youki that I could not filter out of your body. It might change your body a bit or simply disperse over time."

"Change my body! What do you mean?" Was the slightly panicked question from Kurenai.

"To explain that, I will have to explain a bit on how youki interacts with humans and what exactly it is. To put it simply, youki is chakra for beings like me and normal demons. It is not inherently evil, more it's simply far more powerful and aggressive form of chakra. All of your human so called bloodlines, have been caused by humans being infused with youki. Unlike Naruto, whose changes are due to me being sealed in him, are limited to things that make him more similar to me. You might end up with anything. Due to youki reacting to your emotions and interacting with your chakra, it will be something that will benefit you, if any change. And yes, before you ask, all the changes will be written in your genes and be inheritable. And no, it is not something that can be done without at-least some level of consent from the demon in question, as if I were to feel hostile to you the youki would do its best to kill you, rather than strengthen you. But in your case if theres any change it is going to be really minor there is not enough youki for anything noticeable."

At that long and detailed explanation, the sensei of team eight was left more than a bit worried, wondering just what would happen to her.

There was also the chat between Hinata and Inari, where she explained to him just how harsh the life of a ninja can be. Ending up with an Inari promising to try and be as strong as they were.

* * *

><p>With only a bit of the bridge left to complete, thanks to the courtesy of the extra workforce of Naruto clones, the team started looking forward to being able to head home. All of a sudden, Naruto froze, followed by quickly explaining that his clones having stopped a small attack where Tsunami and Inari were at. After a quick check by a few more clones, they found a large force of well over a hundred bandits, along with Gato himself, approaching. They quickly had the workers and Tazuna retreat into the town while they set up an ambush, seeing as allowing them into town would be an unmitigated disaster.<p>

Once the bandits walked into the clearing there was only a small distance being left to go before arriving at the bridge. All of a sudden, they found themselves being bombarded by kunai's from the trees. Quite a few died to it. Rest quickly retreated to the nearby trees, where they fell yet under another attack.

Kurenai walked through the bandits at a steady pace, placing an illusion after illusion on the bandits. Many of them killed each-other or even themselves, some were simply killed by a kunai to the throat, without ever really becoming aware of it before they found themselves dying.

Ino killed a bandit after bandit with kunai, wondering just how slow they moved compared to her.

Hinata moved through the bandits with frightening speed, each touch from her ending with yet another dead bandit. To them, the simple fact that they could barely keep track of the movements of a little girl that was killing them with barely a touch, was terrifying.

Naruto and his army of clones, closed in from all sides, killing bandits with simple attacks. Kunai's, were used in large amounts, either thrown or simply stabbed into a bandit.

Finally, there was only Gato, and the few goons with him, left cowering in the middle of the clearing. Despite the begging from Gato, and promises of wealth, Kurenai simply walked to them, calmly killing each of them, finishing with Gato.

That night, both of the girls cried themselves to sleep, despite the explanation from Kurenai and the kind words explaining that what they did was needed. Both of them were more than slightly shocked from having killed, and not just few but many. With the adrenaline during the fight, neither really tough much of it, only after the fight, did their actions really sink in.

Naruto, while feeling a bit sad over having to kill, ended up explaining to Kurenai that he had already talked it over with Hikaru after killing Zabuza and the girl, Haku. And again re-affirming that he would do anything to protect the people precious to him.

After going through the valuables from the bandits and from Gato`s hideout, donating most of that to the town they had been robbed from in the first place, and also fetching the sword from Zabuza, in order to get the bounty, with the body of Zabuza washed away to sea, they finally headed home. Kurenai did wonder what happened to the support Ino sent for but deciding it could wait till they were back.

Also none of them really thought much on the fact they did not find the body of Zabuza`s accomplice.


	9. Chapter 8 Rewards, Training and Anko

"_Thoughts"_

"**Voice loaded with power or very loud shouting"**

"_**Mind speak"**_

"Normal talk"

I do not own Naruto or any of the characters therein.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 8<strong>

**Rewards, Training and Anko.**

The way back was a lot faster than the initial trip to wave. Not having a civilian to guard allowed the group to move at a far faster speed than before. Making the way back, with only needing one night camping. After doing a small patrol around the perimeter, checking things Kurenai was shocked on arriving back to camp, yet again seeing Hinata and kyuubi cooking together. _„I would have never thought that I would end up eating dinner cooked by kyuubi." t_hought Kurenai, still a bit hesitant about the whole subject but having decided to trust Naruto for now, seeing as truth about Naruto actively talking to kyuubi being known would be very, very bad thing for him.

Once back at the village, they headed straight for the Hokage`s office, knowing any mission misranked like this, should be reported to him. Once there, they told him about how the mission had gone, skipping over the recovery after fighting Gato. With the Hokage looking more than a little angry and shocked on hearing about Naruto getting to experience his hand being cut off and ordering both Naruto and Kurenai to have a proper full medical checkup. As Kurenai was not a properly trained mednin, and her self-healing could have been flawed. Also, re-growing an arm could be classified as a proper medical miracle. He organized full A rank mission pay for them. Added to that, the bounty for Zabuza, with his blade as proof (Something that Kirigakure would be wanting back and paying full bounty for. Seeing as Zabuza would never have parted from his blade while alive it worked as valid proof of death). That ended up being more money than Naruto had ever had before.

Once done at the Hokage's office, both Naruto and Kurenai headed off to the doctor for a checkup. And the last two members of team eight headed off home.

At the doctor's office Kurenai, much to her discomfort, got asked if she would be up for helping out in the hospital seeing as her wounds had been healed flawlessly, they could not find any scarring at all. And Naruto got a full checkup from his regular doctor and yet again got pronounced to be at perfect health.

After that, the last two members of team eight headed off home. On the way home, Kurenai saw Anko walking around and promptly got dragged off to a nearby bar by her to relax, seeing as she was looking stressed.

After a bit of chatting where Kurenai found out that Anko had been on a track and capture mission for the last 4 months after a spy the topic turned to the genin team she was teaching.

"So, tell me about the team of kids you ended up training" asked Anko.

"They are all nice eager kids with all three of them working together smoothly and taking their training seriously. From my team I knew Hinata from before even, she is a bit shy, still but very good. Then there's Ino, who I had my worries about at start but she worked out well this far and finally Naruto" said Kurenai, promptly getting interrupted by Anko.

"Wait, you said Naruto, the blond hyperactive kid?"

"Yes him. Don't tell me you have an issue with him as well. I have already had half the people I know try and warn me, that I should not teach him." said Kurenai, sounding irritated.

"Nothing of the sort. He is the kid I trained for a bit. Remember, the one I told you about. He is fun to throw pointy things at, he gets hit, and he heals up before he even makes it back home, so no need for dulled weapons."

Getting a more than just bit shocked look from her red eyed friend. "The kid you kept telling me about was him?" was the astonished question from her.

"I'm even the one that taught him shadow-clones and spent a lot of time throwing sharp things at him, perfect stress relief while counting as good practice for him."

"He actually has his own self-made variations from the jutsu already. At the last mission, he actually ended up saving my life."

After that, Kurenai gave her friend an overview of how her mission had gone again leaving out anything about kyuubi, besides the fight with Zabuza. They spent the rest of the night drinking and just having fun together with agreeing that Anko would join them for a practice session next week. Seeing as Kurenai had given the team a full week completely off after the mission. and the Hokage giving them a month off missions, with an order to be properly rested.

The next day Naruto yet again grumbled about shinobi library only being open to chuunin and above, not genin as he had expected. He did understand about genin being the highest risk for capture, especially if they were to have easy access to all materials. He resolved to find Kurenai to ask about if she could help him get more materials for his sealing interest, seeing as he was at a dead end with the materials he had. There was so much of the logic and materials about sealing he was missing to make anything not related to storage or trigger seals.

After a quick visit to Ichiraku ramen stand, where he also told them about his most recent missions, skimping over facts like Zabuza, not wanting to tell them how badly he got hurt, he headed off to his personal training ground. Trying to continue manipulating his Hikaru shadow clone a bit, wanting to see, if he could get her to have normal chakra in the clone, not only her own version of chakra.

After 3 days of working on that idea, along with some practice on other things, he finally succeeded. Wishing that they would have had agreed to meet up earlier than in a week. Knowing that trying to go to Hyūga clan compound would not end well to him, so finding Hinata was out of the question. Ino was probably the same, so he did not even try that. He did manage to track down Kurenai to ask her how to get access to shinobi library. Kurenai explained genin by themselves would not, but Jounin-sensei were supposed to bring temporary copies to their students at their own discretion. So Naruto ended up with his own thirty book supply of sealing info and hurried with the help of his enhanced clones to copy anything useful and working through them. Books lasting only a week, were not something you could push off till later.

His experiments in improving the clone for Hikaru prompted a rather surprising visit to Kurenai.

Hearing knocking at her door in the evening Kurenai headed there to see who was there, was surprised to find Hikaru, looking Naruto`s age.

"Hello."

"You look younger… emm.. come inside" was the confused response from Kurenai.

"Sorry about the sudden appearance change, but it was simply easier to move around town looking like a kid and seeing as I might end up fighting alongside you in the future, now that Naruto managed a clone that has human chakra for me to use. But the supply I have is still very limited, making me decide that trying to learn human genjutsu would be beneficial" said Hikaru.

That statement left Kurenai confused on what to do. On one side it was kyuubi. On the other side, if to believe her, she was far different from how she got portrayed. Finally deciding to try and put some effort into getting to know the demon. She prepared some tea for both of them after agreeing that she would give her at least some basic genjutsu techniques to study during team meeting sessions.

"So, do you mind me asking a few questions on some subjects I'm a bit worried about?" asked Kurenai.

"Sure, I don't mind."

"You actually said that the seal is not strong enough to hold you?" was Kurenais first question, while thinking that the idea of the seal being too weak was bit scary.

"That's a simple enough question, the seal can't stop me from escaping, but it can harm me greatly, possibly even kill me if I were to break it. And I am not going to commit suicide. This is the first seal ever I think that could actually possibly kill a Bijū for good. I am not completely sure if I could reform again if I were to be destroyed like this. And it's far past something I'm willing to risk to try. I had never, before being sealed, considered that I could ever die. "

"But all the other tailed beasts have been sealed successfully, for long periods at a time?" asked Kurenai.

"That is because the power gap between each Bijū is far bigger than most think. It's not an equal step up in power between each Bijū, each added tail is basically double as powerful, with the tail acting as more of an indication, than anything else. Something we have difficulty not keeping in our forms, simply due to instinct. For instance, the tree tailed turtle is two times as powerful as the two tailed cat Matatabi. So the power gap between me and any of the others is gigantic. Also, while mentally far different from humans, the more powerful we are, the more mentally able as well."

"What do you mean by mentally different?" asked Kurenai next.

"Let me think for a moment on how exactly to explain."

After a few moments of quietly sitting there Hikaru continued. "One of the more major ones is the ability to multitask. Humans find it difficult to think of more than one thing at once. Yet at the same time while I'm sitting here talking to you I'm adjusting many minor things in Naruto`s body to keep him fully healthy and fit. Discussing seals with him while analyzing if the seal he is currently attempting to modify might explode. Also, I am constantly trying out minor things with pure chakra manipulation on this body to see what method of using chakra might help me and Naruto in long term or be most beneficial in battle."

"Then there is the fact that many of the instincts humans have I simply miss, or have in a slightly altered form. I had to observe others through Naruto`s eyes when he was small to figure out how to comfort him. Also, I don't really feel a need for companionship same as humans do, I enjoy it but I have no issues being completely alone near indefinitely. Out of emotions, ones I had hardest to comprehend were ones like embarrassment. I simply could not understand why someone would feel something like that. At least till I had Naruto read a bunch of books on human mind in the library."

Kurenai, having enough to think about for now, steered the conversation back to more common topics, while deciding that she would keep asking more questions bit by bit, to learn more about the Bijū.

Afterwards she spent rest of the evening talking about more mundane subjects. Ending up feeling even more conflicted than before. Hikaru appeared like such a nice and polite person, even if a really odd on some occasions, instead of the initially expected bloodthirsty mindless monster.

Hinata spent most of the week training with her sister, having grown much closer to her after they stopped being pitted against each other.

And Ino, on arriving home spent most of the week between relaxing and reading more from clan scrolls. She did end up in an argument with her parents, when her father yet again tried to warn her to avoid any unneeded contact with Naruto.

"People like him are unstable, you can't trust him as much as you are." said Inoichi.

"People like him? Maybe the reason people like him end up crazy and murderous, is the way they are treated by people like you! Having kyuubi sealed into him, makes me think trying to connect him to the village more, making it more loyal in the process would be a priority. But no, people try to do their best isolate and drive him out. I have read the clan materials on human behavior. The way he is being treated is pretty much a surefire way to make a person go mad." yelled Ino at her father, before stomping off.

Leaving her father muttering, "She knows, but how? How can she still want to be his friend, knowing what he is?" After a while of thinking, he did decide that maybe, just maybe, his daughter has a point. Yet, thinking the one to take a risk of being regularly near the Jinchuuriki should be someone other than his daughter.

* * *

><p>Meeting up after a week`s break our group gathered up again.<p>

After a bit of talking about what all of them had been up to during the week they got interrupted by a kunai flying at Naruto, who promptly dodged it. After a moment yelling out "Anko can't you at least greet me like a normal person! And where have you been for the last months, I didn't even get to tell you about me graduating!"

"Had a longer mission, I was busy. So what has my favorite genin been up to? Feel like some more practice?" The statement from Anko was shortly followed by her starting throwing kunai at Naruto. After a bit it changed from dodge sharp objects part to get beat up in taijutsu for him.

Ino looked on at the scene shocked. Hinata just sighed sadly not really surprised, having spied on those two practicing more than once (byakugan is an excellent tool for spying). Kurenai`s response was very similar to Hinata`s, knowing Anko relatively well she was really not surprised. At the end of the match she did shiver bit thinking _"And I agreed to relatively regular taijutsu spars with her to try and get into better shape. The fight against Zabuza showed me that trying to rely on genjutsu won't work if I'm not fast enough to make use of them. Even using the one genjutsu I can use completely without hand seals to slow his perception of time making him slower, he was still far faster than I was."_

"Anko, there is something I want to tell you about. But I want you to promise not to tell anyone." asked a nervous looking Naruto, after the sparring match ended.

After a bit of thoughtful looking Anko responded "Hmm... Meh why not considering you want to tell me while standing right next to the only other person in the village I trust. I promise I won't tell anyone. So what is the big secret you want to tell me?"

At that Naruto just summoned Hikaru "I want you to meet Kyuubi, Her name is Hikaru."

Anko just stared at the girl that just got summoned, grabbed Naruto and stated flatly "Start explaining!"

After a lengthy explanation, further prompted on by the kunai that Anko was fingering, Anko agreed to give Hikaru a chance. But stated, that if she even for a moment thought that she was simply manipulating Naruto, she would go to the Hokage as fast as she could.

Once that discussion was over they got back to discussing further training ideas.

Naruto explained about a seal he found in the books, developed by the fourth Hokage. The resistance seal. Something, which should work better than getting weights for more speed training. Only reason the seal was almost never used is the extreme chakra cost in getting it to work. He thought he would be able to charge the seal up for a week at a time for all of them without slightest issue. After a bit of pestering and threats of Anko using snakes more in training, Anko got added to the group that would get the seals, once he got the materials to apply them.

The seal itself worked applying force against any movement done by the person with the seal. Also, it could be easily disabled by a tiny surge of chakra into to the seal from the person it is on.

"I read something in a book yesterday that might work for Naruto. Opening the celestial gates, the main issue with them is they harm the user while providing a gigantic boost in speed and strength. With your healing, that sounds perfect for you." suggested Ino.

"We actually already know about that and did some research. Basics on how to unlock the gates was even available in public library. Sadly we found that to initially open the second gate, making further gates possible, requires something that is impossible for Naruto. You need to push your body to the limit, keeping yourself near the edge of your body`s endurance. Not allowing yourself to really heal or completely recover with near nonstop training for a long period. It was stated that it is usually over a year. Making it something that only a real taijutsu focused person can reach. And Naruto`s recovery rate makes straining his body to that point for any real period of time impossible." stated Hikaru.

"So the reason that would make it awesome for him, also makes it impossible for him to reach? So annoying!" said Ino with an annoyed look.

"The resistance seals will help us all get faster. And I think I could work as a good target for allowing you to practice your clan jutsu Ino. Having a fully built mindscape should be helpful, considering you complained few days ago that you can't train with your father often enough due to him being busy." said Naruto with a thoughtful look.

"Also, we can make good use of Naruto`s army of clones to practice, seeing as we won't have to worry about holding back against them." suggested Kurenai.

"Don't overdo it too much, remember, his improved clones actually give him a memory of the death." reminded Hinata.

Anko quickly added her opinion "That will work as good motivation not to get hit."

Later, the spar made good use of clones as target practice. So Naruto also got to experience several very unpleasant ways to die through clear memories from his clones. Prompting a thought, _"Never, ever piss off Anko."_

On Naruto being fried by a fire jutsu from Anko prompted a question.

"Why are we not taught jutsu like that? They would be so useful." asked an irritated looking Naruto.

"Reason is simple, all the elemental techniques require elemental chakra recomposition as a minimum to work. It is not that we would not want you to learn them, but for most part you simply can't yet." explained Kurenai.

"But can't we start learning them nonetheless." whined Naruto. After a bit more whining, Kurenai agreed to bring them chakra affinity testing paper for the next day, to see what they should start learning and some advice on how to get started, also explaining, that she herself had only basic skills in elemental jutsu, being able to do the elemental recomposition for several elements, but no advanced manipulations, with her chakra pool being too small to make it worth focusing into them much. So she would only really be able to use the low end jutsu`s for each element.

The next day they did find out everyone`s affinity. Naruto, to the surprise of the whole group, was Wind affinity. Something that Kurenai explained was extremely rare in Konoha. And was one of the most offensive affinities anyone could have. Ino tested lightning affinity. And Hinata proved to have a slight affinity to water and earth, giving her a choice to start on either. After getting explained how to get started on the various leaf exercises for elemental affinities, Naruto had to cut a leaf with wind chakra, Ino had to fry it with electricity And Hinata had to either draw the water out of the leaf or to crumble it into dust, leaving the water where it was. They also tested Hikaru., who could get wind affinity results using chakra gotten from Naruto or simply have the testing paper explode if she tried with youki. Something the affinity test paper was definitely not supposed to do.

At the unexpected explosion Naruto did comment that the same result happened to any seal tried this far if he charged it with youki. Even a storage seal made an excellent explosive tag, if charged by youki. Sadly, the storage seal lacked a timer to control the time of explosion, simply exploding if attempted to be used.

Without Anko around, Kurenai got around to teaching Hikaru a bit about genjutsu. Though her progress in it was unusual, to say the least. She could easily get any genjutsu Kurenai demonstrated to work. Yet, every time she applied it to anyone there, they got an immediate feeling of wrongness that nearly caused a panic attack for Hinata. Also, her illusions directly affecting the target were far too clear and detailed. Kurenai explained it off, as that being one of the reasons why clan`s like Hyūga and Inuzuka nearly never used genjutsu. They instinctively based it on their own senses and them being noticeably different, made it very hard to use them. Inuzuka, with their sense of smell being hundreds of time`s more sensitive and Hyūga, seeing a wider length of visible light, even with their bloodline being inactive. Meaning they literally saw the world in different colors than anyone else.

Leaving genjutsu near completely unusable for her at least for now, with the more direct mind manipulation, ones being good panic inducing ones no matter what the original use was.

Rest of the day they also got some practice in noticing and dispelling genjutsu. Something that Naruto had massive issues with, being unable to dispel even the simplest ones.

"Naruto, all you need to do is stop your chakra flow for a second." explained Kurenai yet again.

"Kurenai, Naruto can never stop his chakra. The seal will always, even if needed forcibly, keep it flowing. To do otherwise, the seal would fail, killing us." Stated Hikaru after walking over to the group from where she had been sitting at.

"I had no idea" was the response from Kurenai while thinking "I was trying to teach him something that could kill him if he succeeded!"

After that Kurenai tried to teach him the chakra expelling method for dispelling genjutsu. Something that was rarely used due to the massive chakra waste it was. Naruto managed to get it to work within the first few tries. Getting a visible wave of chakra to flow over the clearing, blinding Hinata, who had her bloodline active at the time, and even dispelling the clone Hikaru was using. After getting told to use far less chakra he managed to get it to work the way it was supposed to, but keeping in mind the use for overcharging the pulse. Disrupting any nearby clones and genjutsu, even blinding byakugan could be useful.

He also ended up explaining why he preferred the improved clones over standard shadow clones.

"While I could use hundreds of normal shadow clones while training, the memories of them, if there is more than three active at once, are fuzzy and indistinct. Yet my improved clones, that I can only field about thirty for any longer length of time, always have perfectly clear memories for me."

* * *

><p>After a few days, Hikaru figured out something she could do that would actually benefit all of them. Human medical ninjutsu. Seeing as using youki to heal, was far more potent than normal medical jutsu, it was also far more risky and prone to side effects. After that, Hikaru asked Kurenai for all the materials she could get on medical jutsu. The next day found Hikaru, along with an annoyed looking Naruto, reading medical materials. At the confused looks from rest of the group she explained.<p>

"I can't get the memories from his clones nor summon more copies for myself to use. But I can read through his eyes., while using the clone to read as well." To the rest of the group it looked a lot like she was just rapidly leafing through the books but left her and Naruto to it. Not having succeeded in convincing her to release Naruto.

And within a week, she proved she was able to use nearly all of the medical jutsu explained in the book. While it would not make her an expert yet the info available made her as good as any of the average doctors in the village.

She did explain away some of the details on how she progressed so fast.

"Nearly half the materials are on how to get chakra control fine enough to even use medical chakra. And control is something I definitely don't lack. Also, I have a very detailed idea of how a human body works already from constantly working on Naruto`s body."

Despite of the explanation, they still found it amazing as mednin training was normally matter of years, especially on her offhand comments on already working on figuring out how to cause the type of regeneration Naruto has naturally in others, using chakra rather than youki.

She also managed to do the wind recomposition exercise after only a few hours, much to the envy of Naruto who had not gotten any further.

At the end of that day, also had Ino take up Naruto`s offer to train some of her clan jutsu basics on him.

On using her mind body swap jutsu on him, to try and take over, she found herself in an eerily familiar looking clearing.

Seeing Naruto next to her she asks "So this is your mindscape? Weird, to specifically invade a mindscape should require a different jutsu."

"Yep, based on what Hikaru says, the seal makes it so that no one can directly get in my mind. Unless I let you, only thing you would do is get stuck here or escape back to your own body." answers Naruto.

Ino, after looking around a bit, asks "You don't mind me looking around here for a bit?"

"Nope, not at all." answers Naruto.

After exploring for a bit she heads to the house on the side of the clearing while thinking _"Unbelievable, he even has animals moving around here. I thought a mindscape this complex would be near impossible to clear. I know my father has guards built to defend his mind in his mindscape, but simply animals."_

On reaching the house she heads inside, finding Naruto talking to Hikaru.

"_Is that a library I see at the side?"_

She looks around for a few moments longer and decides to start asking some questions she has gathered on her small exploration trip.

"This is amazing. This is actually more complex than the mindscape my father uses. How long have you worked on this? How did you manage to create animals? Is that a library? And why that exact spot as starting spot for the mindscape?" asks an exited looking Ino.

"Calm down, one question at a time." is the first thing the now amused Naruto responds with.

"Ok, in the order you asked them. I have worked on this since I was, I think five. The animals I think exactly what I want and how they are supposed to behave and just will them to be. Yes that is a library, written by Hikaru. It is one of the things she does to keep herself busy. And she finds it irritating that I forget books I have read, so anything interesting or relevant she writes down, so I can go over them whenever needed. And the spot, I think the seal was built to use that exact spot when anyone tries to get in. If Hikaru was a bloodthirsty mindless monster, appearing there would rather rapidly remove any invader." were the answers from Naruto.

At that Hikaru adds her comment "Even with me not being a mindless monster, anyone hostile entering here is at my mercy. There is no chance that anyone could defeat me inside the seal."

After that Ino explores the house a bit more, finding that the library is actually huge, making the house bigger on the inside than on the outside. She leafs through few of the books, finding the nice clear handwriting easy to read and the comments and text really well thought out and useful. Finding a kitchen in the house she cannot resist asking.

"Why do you have a kitchen with lots of cooking supplies here?"

"Because my favorite hobby is cooking and even if the food made here is not real, it is still close enough to be able to try out things." answers Hikaru to the major amusement of Ino.

"So let me get this right. The demon the whole village is terrified of has cooking as her favorite hobby." says a now really amused Ino.

"Yes, even if I don't have to eat unlike you, I enjoy the taste of good food. It is quite amazing how bunch of raw ingredients come together to make something amazingly tasty."

After some more exploring and questions Ino finally decides what she can practice.

"I can do the exercises meant to help train willpower and ability to take control in here. Changing something in someone else's mindscape is one of the hardest things to do." After that statement she gets to work to trying to change things. Once she feels she is too tired to continue she leaves the mindscape. And to her amazement finds it is not late in the evening as she expected.

"But I was in there for hours?" states a confused Ino.

"Simple, time in my mindscape moves far faster than in real world when I'm in there as well." answers the second blond.

The rest of the month passes in a similar trend with constant practice and planning. At the end of the month they headed to the mission hall to get their next mission.

* * *

><p>Their first mission after the break ended up being a nice simple escort mission. After getting their packed things they headed off to a nearby town, where they would meet the merchant who needed his cargo to be guarded on the way to Konoha.<p>

After a quick trip there, only taking two days, they met the client, a fat and arrogant old man. The trip back took two weeks, with the horses having to drag overloaded carriages. And the whole team being irritated on the inappropriate looks and stares the man kept sending towards both Hinata and Kurenai. The client did stop with that after a small bandit group tried to attack, seeing as the cargo was rather valuable. The client watched the way both of the people he had been leering at calmly and casually executed the bandits. With him now being slightly scared of them, the rest of the trip back was far more relaxing for the group. Once they arrived back Kurenai praised the group on managing to stay professional, even with a client as irritating as this one.


	10. Chapter 10

"_Thoughts"_

"**Voice loaded with power or very loud shouting"**

"_**Mind speak"**_

"Normal talk"

I do not own Naruto or any of the characters therein.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 9<strong>

**More C rank missions.**

Team 8 had now already done several C rank missions as a team. All of them going smoothly with nearly no problems. After getting to rest for a few days after their latest mission they met up as usual, did some practice, some more planning and headed to get another mission.

"I hope we get a nice quiet C rank again. I love to have more funds available and not having to ask my parents for money for anything I want to buy." stated Ino while they were walking towards the mission hall.

"I heard that the chuunin exams are coming around in two months, with 1 more c rank we should actually be eligible to be able nominated. I would love to have proper access to shinobi library. " Said Naruto.

"I am not sure we are ready for being a chuunin yet. I don't like the idea that we might be split up to other teams on any missions where it's more beneficial. I would rather stay with Kurenai and you two on all missions." Said Hinata feeling hesitant of the idea of chuunin exams "And I have heard that there are deaths on the exams."

Kurenai just listened in while walking after her team, already planning to nominate them for chuunin exams _"How could I not nominate them, they have to be some of the most talented genin of their generation. It is amazing just how fast they are progressing."_

Once they reached the mission hall they were sent to the Hokage office as they got specifically selected for a mission, so the Hokage himself would brief them.

Once reaching the Hokage's office, the secretary sent them straight in past the two ANBU guards next to the door.

To their surprise they found team 10 already inside.

"Hi JJ" was the cheerful greeting from Naruto.

Everyone besides Hinata and Naruto himself looked shocked at the casual greeting from Naruto to the Hokage.

Kurenai started to quickly stammer out an apology because of her genin. But before she could actually say anything, the now amused looking Hokage started talking.

"Don't worry Kurenai, I'm used to such a greeting from Naruto."

"Anyways, before I get sidetracked let's get onto the topic of why I called both teams here."

"A village near the border is in need of some help. They are being plagued by bandits and several of the village people have already been kidnapped."

"Both teams will escort the village leader back to the village, with team 10 staying in the village till the bandits have been cleared to keep the villagers safe and help rebuild."

"Team 8, being the genin team that has seen the most combat out of this year's graduates, will have the responsibility of hunting down and eliminating the bandits."

"At the moment there is no clear info on the amount of bandits and if any missing nin are in the group. So be careful."

"The client will be ready to move out tomorrow at noon, so you have until then to pack and get ready."

At that everyone headed off to start packing.

Naruto quickly caught up to Hinata.

"Hinata, do you mind getting me some more kunai from any of the shops? Most of my decent ones are kind of broken."

"Sure I don't mind. Anything else you need?" Asked Hinata

At that Ino quickly asked "Why are you asking Hinata to buy your stuff?"

Naruto simply looked at her for a moment like she was an idiot and asked "So you think any of the shops will let me in? I have tried all of the ones around here, only one even allowed me in and that one was asking nearly twenty times the price things were worth."

Ino just blushed at that but did look thoughtful for a moment "Actually I think I know one that should not make an issue out of you being you."

Ino just dragged both of them off to a weapon shop near the edge of the village.

The shop had a huge forge on the side and a sign above the door "Higurashi weapon shop" And a note next to the door stating shinobi only.

"Based on my dad, this is the best quality weapon shop in the village." Stated Ino.

"Hi, how can I help you?" Asked a girl at the counter.

She was wearing a pink sleeveless blouse with green trousers. Brown hair tied up in two buns on top of her head and brown eyes.

"I need three sets of kunai. And one set of shuriken."

The girl quickly picked out the asked items. The price of them being far lower, than Naruto had feared.

When Naruto grabbed some of his storage scrolls and added the items to different scrolls the girl looked at them for a moment and asked "Who made the storage scrolls? They seem to be really high quality."

"I made them myself." replied Naruto, being surprised at the interest in his storage scrolls. Looking to the side he noticed the shelf with a sign storage scrolls, a rather high price tag and only one scroll on the shelf.

"You did? Any chance you got more and might be willing to sell them? Our regular supplier died few months ago and I cannot keep up with the demand by myself." said the girl.

Naruto thought for a moment, then grabbed the scroll where he kept the extra storage scrolls and unsealed the whole set onto the counter. Getting a wide eyed look from the girl.

"**Dad get over here!"** shouted the girl towards the door at the back.

"My name is Tenten. And I think my dad is more than willing to buy some of the scrolls off you. It must have taken years to make all of these."

"My name is Naruto. These are my teammates Hinata and Ino. And not really, only took me a few days." said Naruto.

Getting a wide eyed look from Tenten. Moments later her dad walked in, covered in ash from the forge at the back. On seeing Naruto he froze looking at him in a wide eyed stare for a few moments. Naruto prepared himself for the usual get out of my store shouting, but to his surprise the man simply greeted them and turned to Tenten to ask what she needed.

"Dad I think I found us a new supplier for storage scrolls. Naruto here made these. And based on what I saw they are really well made."

The man looked over the scrolls and agreed that they were well made, he offered Naruto a decent price per scroll. Naruto thought for a moment and actually suggested.

"How about half of that, the scrolls are easy for me to make and a lot of people could use the scrolls. Especially if you sell them cheaper than the insane price they cost now."

"Hmm, I can do that, it will get us more customers and make a lot of shinobi`s life easier." agreed Tenten`s father.

"I can sell you most of these for now and simply make loads more after the mission. I have no issues in making these in bulk." replied Naruto once again.

"How the hell can you make these in bulk? They take loads of chakra to charge up." asked the still bit shocked looking Tenten.

"I have more chakra than I know what to do with. Always have." Answered Naruto.

At the end of their shopping in Higurashi`s weapon shop Naruto left with the equipment he needed and a lot more money than he entered with. Feeling relatively happy.

* * *

><p>That evening Kurenai yet again ended with Hikaru as a guest.<p>

"I am surprised you keep coming to visit me" said Kurenai.

"You are the only person besides Naruto that I can simply spend time with. Spending time talking to you is surprisingly nice. I can't exactly go over to Hyūga compound or visit Ino`s parents house. Even if I can pass as a civilian they would get curious on a completely unknown person, visiting their daughter regularly. And I already spend every moment that he is awake with Naruto. And for obvious reasons, everyone else is kind of excluded too."

Kurenai again made some tea for them and settled in for a nice evening of chatting. Hikaru`s opinions were always interesting and insightful.

"I find it amazing that Naruto seems to be doing really well with seals. Most people I know can barely copy simpler seals and completely fail in modifying any seal." Said Kurenai

"To a degree that is because his mind seems to be built slightly differently from what I would consider normal human. Probably something different in his ancestry. When I work on seals I systematically build them step by step. He simply skips all of that and simply understands the seal at some basic level." was the reply from Hikaru.

"If I had not forced his brain cells to regenerate, he would probably be a very annoying person to be around."

"What do you mean?" asked Kurenai while thinking _"Forced brain cells to regenerate? How? What?"_

"Hmm, let me think on how to explain it to you. Basically normally for human's brain cells become better and better at what they do but they do not regenerate, so any you lose are gone. Also some brain cells never link together properly so are lost doing nothing as well. In his case, I carefully destroyed the damaged ones, forcing new ones to grow. Due to that, he is very, very intelligent. His mind overall is not structured as normal, so he is unbelievable talented in some areas. And average in others."

"Like social interactions. If not for me helping, many things you take for granted, would not be functioning quite normally. Like at least some idea of what others are feeling comes from body language and he would miss most of those hints, while at the same time being very good at predicting movement from body language. Also many other small things. He would have still been very talented in fighting and sealing. But overall he would have been bit of an idiot in most other areas."

"I can't directly influence how his mind grows much but I can help it along overall."

"Hmm… mind telling me a bit more about the other Bijū?" asked Kurenai deciding to think more on the previous subject later.

"I don't mind, I don't know that much about most of them, I have not actually met all of them. But I know some things humans generally don't."

"Ok let me go one by one, telling details that you might find interesting or amusing."

"One tail raccoon creature thingy, as I have stated before, is insane. He has no logic, no self-control and is bloodthirsty. So nothing much to say there. O I also think he is named Shukaku or something like that."

"Two tail cat Matabi was actually raised by humans. I am not sure of the specifics on how that came to be but she spent most of her early life in the form of a human girl, being raised by humans. I also know that she has been successfully sealed loads of time`s and as long as her host is female and she has access to her host`s senses she does not really struggle to free herself too much."

"Three tails is a lazy turtle. I think the Nara kid in the team we are going with tomorrow looks hyper in comparison."

"I know very little about the others. Except eight tailed ox, octopus, creature, not sure what the hell he is. He is supposedly very friendly if he respects you."

"That has to be the most unusual description of a few Bijū I have ever heard. Most start with ferocious, bloodthirsty, before going on to describe appearance and known facts." stated the amused Kurenai.

"I also figured out how I can come with you tomorrow in a physical form and actually help out." said Hikaru, promptly transforming into a tiny red fox.

Kurenai just stared at her for a few moments, "You have to be the cutest looking demon walking around now." she finally said sounding very amused and picking Hikaru up off the chair starting to pet her.

Hikaru just jumped out of her lap "I am not a pet! Even if I am going to have to pretend to be." And transformed back to her human form, for a moment having tails and fox ears on top of her head before shifting again, looking fully human again. Looking half way between amused and annoyed.

"But I guess I am going to have that reaction from all the girls in both teams." stated Hikaru with a sad sigh.

They spent rest of the evening chatting and relaxing. With Kurenai occasionally thinking. _"How did it come to me considering kyuubi one of my better friends."_

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The next morning both teams met up at the village gate. After greeting each other and the sensei`s of both teams, they agreed on how to organize both teams during the escort. They got ready to wait till the small caravan with food and construction supplies got ready to travel.

Once the caravan was on the way with both groups of genin`s spread around as an escort, Naruto once again made his usual bunch of clones as scouts.

"So what is up with the fox?" asked Asuma, looking at the tiny fox sitting on Kurenai`s shoulder.

"She is Naruto's pet. And she is also really friendly." replied Kurenai.

At that they had Sakura, who had been staring at the tiny fox since the teams met up, eagerly ask "Really? Can I pet her please? She is so cute!"

Kurenai, looking really amused at that, picked the fox off her shoulder and handed her to Sakura, who was looking ecstatic, being able to hold and pet the cute looking fox.

After a few minutes, the fox escaped and ran to the other side of the caravan where Naruto was, climbing onto his shoulder. Prompting a question from Hinata to Naruto "Is that Hikaru?"

"Yes." replied Naruto, looking surprised when Hinata started giggling at that. After few minutes looking thoughtful, she picked Hikaru up and brought her over to where Ino and Sakura were chatting with each other.

Naruto got a statement in his mind _**"Next time I suggest something like this please talk some sense into me before I actually do it. Having to pretend to be a pet is bad enough. And Hinata is evil…"**_

Naruto simply decided that this was way too amusing so decided not to interfere with the girls who found Hikaru as a tiny fox very cute and were busy playing with her.

One of the evenings in the camp Ino and Sakura were sitting together, talking.

"So, tell me how is your team." asked Sakura.

"The team is awesome. Both Hinata and Naruto are nice and fun to be around. And Kurenai is a really good teacher." Replied Ino

"I am surprised at that, I was worried you were going to have issues with Naruto in your team. Everyone knows he is a troublemaker." said Sakura.

At that Ino looked annoyed. "Naruto gets a lot of undeserved blame. Think back to the academy, yes Naruto did some pranks but did any of them ever actually hurt anyone? And he was always willing to help if asked."

"Even my mom knew to tell me that he is a troublemaker and to stay away from him. But fine, I'll keep an eye on how he really is. On another topic, I wish I had been placed in a team with someone great, like Sasuke, rather than my current teammates. I am sure I could have gotten him on a date by now if I had been but instead I am stuck with those two" said Sakura and pointed at her teammates.

"What is wrong with them?" asked Ino.

"One of them is lazy and the other one is always eating, that is what is wrong. And our sensei spends half of our training time playing shogi with Shikamaru. I did start using their shogi time to read up on something I want to specialize in after my sensei pointed out I might have some talent for it. So now I'm trying to learn that. "

"Nice. My team is awesome but yes, being placed with Sasuke would have been even better."

Rest of the trip to the client's village was relatively quiet. No bandits, nothing much happening. They did get a lot of time to just chat to the members of the team ten.

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On arrival to the small village they were greeted by miserable looking villagers, many of the looking half-starved and quite a few with bruises and minor injuries.

"They really are in a bad state." stated the worried looking Sakura.

"Troublesome." said Shikamaru while looking around.

"Ok team ten, start helping to unload!" came the order from Asuma.

There was a sad sigh from Shikamaru at that order. Nonetheless he joined his teammates in helping the caravan unload materials.

"And team eight, come with me, let's ask around what villagers know about the bandits before we head out." was the order from Kurenai to her team.

They found out that the bandits came every few weeks, anyone resisting got hurt and more often than not, they also burned down the homes as well, for those that resisted. Also, quite a few of the youths in the village had gone missing, probably captured by the bandits.

"Please, you need to rescue my daughter." pleaded the mother of one of the missing people.

"They really are in a bad state, the village is out of the way enough that none of the major trading routes goes through here. They are isolated enough that if not for the village major, no one would have known anything was even wrong. And fear for the threats of the bandits kept them from fleeing." was Kurenai`s opinion on the subject.

"Ok, let's head out, now we know the direction they retreated to each time, so let's start with that. Also Naruto, make some clones and spread them out for scouting."

Few hours later they lost the trail of the bandits, when moving to a rocky ground.

"Annoying, their last visit is too far ago to track by smell and now the rocky ground hides the path`s they might have taken as well." was Naruto`s annoyed opinion on the terrain change.

"Ok, we are camping nearby for the night and will spread out tomorrow to track them down." ordered Kurenai.

They made camp for the night and organized the lookout schedule.

"_It is horrible what the bandits have been doing to this village." t_hought Naruto during his shift on guard to his inner demon.

"_**Yes, human cruelty seems to have no limit."**_ was the serious sounding reply from Hikaru.

* * *

><p>The next day, once everyone woke up, they agreed to spread out scouting and try to find the bandit base, but not engage, but meet up in the evening to plan on how to deal with them best.<p>

Naruto made a pair of his enhanced clones to go with everyone, including Hikaru, who offered to help out as an extra member on their team.

"I think we are the only five person team in Konoha." was Ino's opinion on the subject.

"Anyways, good luck and be careful."

Everyone headed off in a different direction, carefully moving about to be sure not to have the bandits discover them before they were ready to deal with them.

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Naruto started moving more carefully when hearing noise up ahead. He sneaked up and saw bandits on a clearing in front of a large cave. He carefully moved around, being sure not to be seen to see how the patrols were organized and how the camp was organized overall.

"_I need to find where they are keeping the captured people."_

Naruto carefully created a new shadow clone and dispelled it to update all the clones with the rest of his team members, that he had found the camp and what he had seen this far.

"_I wish the terrain was not so annoyingly bear with only rocks dotted about. Sneaking between trees is far easier."_

"_**Be careful."**_ was the reminder from kyuubi.

Naruto carefully moved up the uneven cliffside, hoping to get a better view of the camp. Once he was up there and had a good view of the bandit camp he had to focus in order not to just charge the camp right there and then. Few girls captured by the bandits were being used as entertainment…

"_They will pay for this" _was his thought while carefully making his way away from the camp, planning to circle around in order to head back to camp.

Suddenly stopping at the new smell. _"This is fresh, someone was here just moments ago." _he slowed down and started moving as carefully as he could.

"So we have a brat from Konoha here. I wonder how much we can get for you if we sell you to Iwa." came the voice from somewhere nearby.

"_Fuck fuck fuck, I need to get out of here fast. There were not supposed to be any bloody missing nin here." _Were Naruto`s thoughts on the situation.

"_**Calm down and focus find where he is and prepare to move."**_

Nonetheless, Naruto was not prepared for when he was grabbed from below. Moments later seeing a muscled man coming out of the earth with a hitai-ate with dashed through Iwa symbol on in. Another rapidly approaching from behind the nearby bush with Kiri symbol on it also dashed through. The second person rapidly approached and smashed Naruto in the face, breaking his nose and knocking him unconscious.

"The brat probably won't be worth much." said the Kiri nin.

"Eh he is blond and a shinobi from Konoha. Even faintly looking similar to the yellow flash is enough for Iwa to pay well." said the nin from Iwa while pulling the unconscious Naruto out of the ground."

They proceeded to carry him through the bandit camp into the cave.

"Kika, we captured a Konoha brat snooping around." said the man from Iwa.

The man named Kika was wearing a hitai-ate with dashed through mark for Suna, the sand village.

"Ok, let's restrain him" said Kika, grabbed a bunch paper tags with seals written on them, slapping one of them to Naruto's hand. To his great surprise the seal tag did not glow faintly, it lighted up illuminating the whole room.

"What the fuck." came from the shinobi from Iwa.

"Shut up Shita!" ordered Kika. Quickly looking over Naruto more thoroughly. "Did you break his nose?"

"Nagai smashed him in the face to knock him out." was the reply from the Iwa nin, now identified as Shita.

"I think we just hit payday." said the now happy looking Suna nin. "He has already healed that and to get such a reaction from the chakra disruption seals his reserves must be huge." while applying a row of the disruption tags to Naruto`s both arms. "He must have some major bloodline to heal this fast along with the huge chakra reserves. Kumo might be willing to reward us very well for this."

"We need to prepare to deal with the kid's team as well. Best option is to capture them, more money is always good" decided Kika. "Nagai, go order the bandits to be alert and prepare proper patrols for those idiot."

Seeing Naruto move for a moment he quickly grabbed a syringe filled with greenish liquid off the shelf and injected it into Naruto. "This should keep him unconscious for a few days."

* * *

><p>Back in another direction the clones with Kurenai suddenly stumbled before saying in a worried voice "The original must be unconscious, at most we will be around for a few minutes."<p>

"Can you use the dispelling trick to inform the other clones to order the rest of the girls to meet up in our camp as quick as possible." asked Kurenai, looking very worried.

One of the clones dispelled, the second one informed her that the rest of the team should have gotten the message. Half way back to the camp the other clone dispelled as well.

Finally reaching the camp, Kurenai only needed to wait a few minutes to have both girls arrive and a few minutes later to her surprise a worried looking Hikaru, stumbling into the clearing, who instantly started talking as soon as seeing the rest of them.

"I'll be quick, as I can barely keep this clone intact at the moment. Naruto was an idiot and scouted himself, rather than sending clones and got caught by some missing nin leading the bandits. They are planning to try and sell him as a bloodline source. And he is so loaded up on chakra disruption seals it's taking all of my effort to try and filter out the poison he got injected with and not losing the mental link allowing me access to his senses at the same time. I can lead you guys to the camp but won't be much help otherwise."

She also gave the team a quick overview of the camp and what she could hear through Naruto`s senses about the caves.

Kurenai thought for a few minutes before she started talking "Ok, we will need to approach carefully. Hinata you scout as far ahead as you can, we need to ideally find an alternate way into the caves. Also keep an eye out for traps. We still have the advantage of them not knowing about our teams other members. Also, I should be able to manage one shadow clone to get assistance from team 10."

They made their way to the camp. Managing to stay undetected due to Hinata being able to detect all the patrols from a large distance away.

"They just spread out again to start patrolling, also they are planning to head out in the morning with the slaves they have and Naruto. They decided to sell him to Iwa and the slaves to some nobleman in land of earth." said the more and more unstable looking Hikaru clone. Before again shifting to her form that looked like a human with tails and fox ears. Something that made the rest of the team worried. She was always in control of her transformations and now was at random moments shifting between different shapes she usually used.

"We can`t wait for team 10 to get here. Ino do you think you can possess one of the patrolling bandits to find out layout of the caves inside." said Kurenai, while Hinata right next to her looked miserable. She blamed herself for not being able to see through the hill where the caves were, because of too much metal ore in the walls.

"Ok, take care of my body in the meantime." said Ino before going through a few handseals and projecting herself into one of the bandits on the other side of the clearing. Only taking a moment to overtake the mind of the bandit. _"Nice, a weak minded bandit." _Quickly going through the bandits recent memories while doing her best to imitate how the bandit was behaving on the patrol before she took over.

After having gone over the bandits memories she was very very much pissed. _"These guys have a few of the female slaves and one of the boys kept separately out of the cave for "entertainment"! I never ever wanted to know in so much detain what rape feels like. I hope my dad will be willing to teach how to erase a memory taken from a victim."_ The man Ino possessed had made use of the entertainment slaves just before going on his patrol.

"_I will enjoy wiping out every last one of these bandits."_

Once the bandits assigned patrol route was done she made her way into the caves. Doing her best to behave close enough to the bandit's normal behavior to not arose suspicion. She quickly found few backdoor routes into the caves and memorized the maze that lead to the main caves used to keep the captives and the part of the tunnels used as home for the three shinobi leading the bandits.

* * *

><p>"I hope Ino is back soon, I'm so worried about Naruto and Hikaru is really not looking good either." stated Hinata.<p>

And only moments later Ino stirred.

"I got us a backdoor way in. There's a tunnel from around the hill, short trip west behind a waterfall there. I also modified the memory of the bandit I used enough that they have no idea I was there."

The team quickly made their way to the entrance of the tunnel and started moving in, being careful not to be noticed. They quickly scattered to hide when they heard footsteps up ahead.

"Bloody paranoid Kika, no one knows about these tunnels, why the heck do I need to patrol through them."

At the same time Kurenai used gestures to tell the team what to do. As soon as the missing nin came in sight Kurenai carefully placed one of her more subtle genjutsu on the missing nin. The man did not notice anything up till the moment a strike from Hinata straight into his heart ended his life.

"That was the Iwa nin named Shita Omiin."

Kurenai quickly moved him to the side of the tunnel, hiding him from plain sight.

"Good work." Said Kurenai and they moved onwards.

Bit onwards they found where the slaves were behind bars, in a room to the side from the main tunnel. Kurenai quickly made it clear that they would not be freeing the slaves before the missing nin are dealt with. "If the slaves see us and start expecting freedom it will be too much noise announcing our presence to the others. We will free them but only once the bigger dangers are dealt with. "

They kept moving onwards, reaching one of the bigger rooms in the cave system. There was even a pool on the further on side.

The room had a small amount of fog making vision difficult.

"I think we have been noticed, the mist is not natural, it's infused with chakra." said Hinata with a focused look on her face, suddenly shouting "There! Incoming, dodge quick!" while pointing in a direction to the side and quickly jumping to the side. Rest of the team followed her example, narrowly dodging a hail of kunai. The whole time the mist kept getting thicker and thicker.

Then they heard a creepy voice echoing all around the room. "Nice prey to play around with"

"Someone just ran off through the side tunnel towards the bandit camp entrance."

"_Reinforcements probably and the last missing nin, fuck this is bad, I can barely avoid the stuff he is throwing at us and I can't see him in this thick fog that is now covering the room. Hinata should be fine but I need to stay near Ino or the guy will kill her."_ thought Kurenai.

At the same time Hikaru was also dodging the projectiles the guy in the mist kept throwing at them. _"I need to avoid getting hit till I can get close, right now even the slightest cut will dispel this body."_

Hinata rapidly moved towards the man, trying a strike towards his back. He managed to turn out of the way and hit her in the face with his fist. She rapidly dodged out of the way of his other hand where he had a kunai. She kept throwing the kunai she had on her towards the man, making sure to make as much noise as possible for rest of the team to be able to pinpoint his position.

"Bloody Hyūga, just my bloody luck running into one of you, but once you are disabled I should be able to get a good price out of you in Kumo. And the fun I can have with your nice looking body."

Hinata dodged out of the way of a few more kunai, quickly moving in for another strike. Suddenly stopping mid strike she quickly moved back.

Nagai thought "Fuck, I lost track of the others" Suddenly seeing a redhead girl dashing out of the mist towards him with a grim look on her face.

He slashed towards her and she did not even dodge, having the kunai sink into her shoulder, she just pushed through and grabbed onto the man.

"_What the fuck, is she trying to hug me or something" _only for moments later he met his death, the girl exploded violently. Blasting most of the mist in the area apart and visibility quickly started to return as the man sustaining it was dead in many bloody chunks around the area. Hinata was covered in blood from the explosion.

"We need to move quickly to where Naruto is, the last guy might decide to kill him before fleeing." ordered Kurenai

Ino quickly kept running through the tunnels towards where Naruto was kept. On the way they met few bandits who got quickly dispatched. Finally arriving in the chamber Naruto was kept they quickly checked the room for traps before entering and got to work removing the seal tags off him. His jacket and shirt had been taken off and his whole upper body was covered by chakra disruption seals that were all glowing brightly. Once the tags were off it took only moments before he regained consciousness.

"Agh my head." mumbled Naruto.

"You are lucky that is the only issue you are having at the moment. We will talk about you not being cautions later. Now make few clones, the bandit camp is now warned that we are here and we have slaves to free as well."

Naruto made a bunch of clones.

"Good. Those are the ones that can explode right?" asked Kurenai.

"Yes." replied Naruto.

"My shadow clone dispelled a few minutes ago, Asuma`s team is prepared near the bandit camp and the explosions will work as a signal for them to attack. So send your clones out to attack and we will quickly go free the slaves in the meantime and escort them out."

The team moved out towards the back of the tunnels where the slaves were.

In meantime Naruto clones made it to the entrance of the cave and headed out. Five clones heading to where some of the slaves were and rest rapidly running between the tents, dodging attacks from bandits spread out, if possible getting near groups of bandits and started exploding.

"Damn, I guess she was not kidding about the army of explosive clones." said Asuma, hidden in a tree near the bandit camp. "Ok Chōji, you go with Sakura as support, I`ll head out with Shikamaru, you know what to do. Keep an eye out for any of the missing nin, retreat towards me if you meet any of them." And team 10 moved out to help destroy the bandit camp. Chōji how headed out went through a set of handseals and expanded to a large round shape and started rapidly picking up speed, rolling straight into the bandit camp crushing everything in his path, with Sakura following behind him, running to keep up and taking out any bandits who successfully dodge Chōji`s charge. In another direction Asuma used his knuckle knife to kill bandit after bandit, while Shikamaru kept paralyzing them with his shadows, making them stationary pray for his teacher. After a while the bandit camp was in ruins, team 10 found a group of Naruto`s guarding a few scared and hurt looking women and a small boy. None of the people he was guarding looked ok, with some of the girls simply staring into emptiness and others crying at finally having hope of being free.

After a while of waiting and making sure there were no more surviving bandits, the members of team eight exited the caves, with nearly a hundred miserable looking people following them.

"Everything went fine out here?" asked Kurenai after making her way to Asuma.

"Yes, the bandits were not much of a resistance no signs of any of the missing nin though, that your clone warned us about."

"We killed two of them in the tunnels. Not sure where the third one is, probably fled after his allies died. At the moment still got a whole group of Naruto clones scouting the caves for any more bandits." replied Kurenai to Asuma.

"Ok, so best course is to gather the corpses and burn them, then bring all of these people back to the village. And we need to find where all of them came from, the village only lost fifteen or so people. And I need to deal with my team, it was first time killing for Sakura and Chōji has only killed once before too and now he killed a lot." said Asuma before heading off to where rest of his team was.

Sakura was looking miserable with Chōji standing next to her, not really looking all that good either and Shikamaru standing off to the side looking grim.

They got the ex-slaves sorted after a bit, cleared out anything valuable in the caves, not finding as much as expected, deciding the last missing nin had taken most of the valuables with him. The bandits got gathered up into a pile with lots of wood added and ignited it, once the morning arrived. The group moved out with lots of Naruto clones helping to carry the weakest of the victims.

"It is impressive just how many clones he can make." said Asuma to Kurenai while a bit away from the bulk of people.

"It is very useful. Just need to work on him being more cautious. He still tends to charge straight in."

"You planning to add your team to the upcoming chuunin exams?" asked Asuma.

"Yes, they have worked hard enough to deserve that chance and they are prepared for it by now. And they have earned my trust enough that they deserve me not having to keep back, on what I am allowed to teach them."

"Yes, it is annoying that there are so many rules in place on what we are allowed to teach to the new genin. But generally limiting what most genin know of advance knowledge only available to Konoha limits the interest other villages have in capturing our genin." said Asuma.

"_I wish he would stop with the smoking. He was not willing to stop it even when I made him choose between me and smoking. He is still nice to be around, maybe I should give us another chance at some point. Hmm I'll consider it after the chuunin exams, for now I'll be too busy for a relationship anyway."_

The team made it back to the village without any issues, most of the freed people decided to stay there, majorly boosting the population of the village. Most of the people were from another village that the bandits had completely wiped out. When the team asked Naruto about Hikaru he said that she was exhausted from the effort of healing him through the disruption seals and keeping the clone from dispersing when hurt, instead blowing up the missing nin and would be asleep for a few days at least.

Naruto also got scolded by Kurenai on being careless. Just because it was expected to be only bandits did not excuse being careless and not using the tools he had available. His clones were ideal for safe scouting and there had been no reason for him to go into the camp himself. He felt guilty and made sure to always be careful as he had it explained in detail, just how much more dangerous it became because they had to rush to save him.

When they arrived back in Konoha, the mission once again got marked down as higher rank than the C rank it started with getting marked down as a B rank mission.


End file.
